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And I think by putting his hand in the hands of bin Laden, he realized that now he stood a chance of bringing about his long awaited dream.” In 1996 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed met bin Laden in Tora Bora, Afghanistan.
The 9-11 Commission (formally the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States), set up in 2002 by U.S. Pres.
George W.
Bush and the U.S. Congress to investigate the attacks of 2001, explained that it was then that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed “presented a proposal for an operation that would involve training pilots who would crash planes into buildings in the United States.” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed dreamed up the tactical innovation of using hijacked planes to attack the United States, al-Qaeda provided the personnel, money, and logistical support to execute the operation, and bin Laden wove the attacks on New York and Washington into a larger strategic framework of attacking the “far enemy”—the United States—in order to bring about regime change across the Middle East.
The September 11 plot demonstrated that al-Qaeda was an organization of global reach.
The plot played out across the globe with planning meetings in Malaysia, operatives taking flight lessons in the United States, coordination by plot leaders based in Hamburg, Germany, money transfers from Dubai, and recruitment of suicide operatives from countries around the Middle East—all activities that were ultimately overseen by al-Qaeda’s leaders in Afghanistan.
Key parts of the September 11 plot took shape in Hamburg.
Four of the key pilots and planners in the “Hamburg cell” who would take operational control of the September 11 attacks, including the lead hijacker Mohammed Atta, had a chance meeting on a train in Germany in 1999 with an Islamist militant who struck up a conversation with them about fighting jihad in the Russian republic of Chechnya.
The militant put the Hamburg cell in touch with an al-Qaeda operative living in Germany who explained that it was difficult to get to Chechnya at that time, because many travelers were being detained in Georgia.
He recommended they go to Afghanistan instead.
Although Afghanistan was critical to the rise of al-Qaeda, it was the experience that some of the plotters acquired in the West that made them simultaneously more zealous and better equipped to carry out the attacks.
Three of the four plotters who would pilot the hijacked planes on September 11 and one of the key planners, Ramzi Binalshibh, became more radical while living in Hamburg.
Some combination of perceived or real discrimination, alienation, and homesickness seems to have turned them all in a more militant direction.
Increasingly cutting themselves off from the outside world, they gradually radicalized each other, and eventually the friends decided to wage battle in bin Laden’s global jihad, setting off for Afghanistan in 1999 in search of al-Qaeda.
Atta and the other members of the Hamburg group arrived in Afghanistan in 1999 right at the moment that the September 11 plot was beginning to take shape.
Bin Laden and his military commander Muhammad Atef realized that Atta and his fellow Western-educated jihadists were far better suited to lead the attacks on Washington and New York than the men they had already recruited, leading bin Laden to appoint Atta to head the operation.
The hijackers, most of whom were from Saudi Arabia, established themselves in the United States, many well in advance of the attacks.
They traveled in small groups, and some of them received commercial flight training.
Throughout his stay in the United States, Atta kept Binalshibh updated on the plot’s progress via e-mail.
To cloak his activities, Atta wrote the messages as if he were writing to his girlfriend “Jenny,” using innocuous code to inform Binalshibh that they were almost complete in their training and readiness for the attacks.
Atta wrote in one message, “The first semester commences in three weeks…Nineteen certificates for private education and four exams.” The referenced 19 “certificates” were code that identified the 19 al-Qaeda hijackers, while the four “exams” identified the targets of the attacks.
In the early morning of August 29, 2001, Atta called Binalshibh and said he had a riddle that he was trying to solve: “Two sticks, a dash and a cake with a stick down—what is it?” After considering the question, Binalshibh realized that Atta was telling him that the attacks would occur in two weeks—the two sticks being the number 11 and the cake with a stick down a 9.
Putting it together, it meant that the attacks would occur on 11-9, or 11 September (in most countries the day precedes the month in numeric dates, but in the United States the month precedes the day; hence, it was 9-11 in the United States).
On September 5 Binalshibh left Germany for Pakistan.
Once there he sent a messenger to Afghanistan to inform bin Laden about both the day of the attack and its scope.Note for screen reader users: once expanded, the first four items of the navigation menu have some associated content which may provide additional information of interest.
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The World Trade Center (WTC) was a 16-acre commercial complex in lower Manhattan that contained seven buildings, a large plaza, and an underground shopping mall that connected six of the buildings.
The centerpieces of the complex were the Twin Towers.
On September 11, 2001, the entire complex was destroyed in a terrorist attack that has come to be referred to as “9/11.” Was this information helpful?
Yes|No The Twin Towers were the tallest buildings in New York City.
At 110 stories each, 1 WTC (North Tower) and 2 WTC (South Tower) provided nearly 10 million square feet of office space for about 35,000 people and 430 companies.
For a brief period upon their completion in 1973, they were the tallest buildings in the world.
They attracted roughly 70,000 commuters and tourists daily.
The towers were massive.
The North Tower rose 1,368 feet—1,730 feet with a large antenna—and the South Tower stood 1,362 feet high.
Views extended 45 miles or more from the top of the towers in every direction—far enough to see all five New York City boroughs, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
Each weighed more than 250,000 tons and contained 99 elevators and 21,800 windows.
Each floor was an acre in size and there was enough concrete in the towers to build a five-foot-wide sidewalk from New York City to Washington, D.C. The towers had been the target of an attack before 9/11.
On February 26, 1993, terrorists with links to an Islamist extremist group detonated explosives in a van parked underneath the WTC.
Six people were killed and thousands were injured.
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Yes|No “9/11” is shorthand for four coordinated terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group, that occurred on the morning of September 11, 2001.
Nineteen terrorists from al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial airplanes, deliberately crashing two of the planes into the upper floors of the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center complex and a third plane into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.
The Twin Towers ultimately collapsed because of the damage sustained from the impacts and the resulting fires.
After learning about the other attacks, passengers on the fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, fought back, and the plane was crashed into an empty field in western Pennsylvania about 20 minutes by air from Washington, D.C. The attacks killed 2,977 people from 93 nations: 2,753 people were killed in New York; 184 people were killed at the Pentagon; and 40 people were killed on Flight 93.
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Yes|No The hijacked Flight 11 was crashed into floors 93 to 99 of the North Tower (1 WTC) at 8:46 a.m. The hijacked Flight 175 struck floors 77 to 85 of the South Tower (2 WTC) 17 minutes later at 9:03 a.m. When the towers were struck, between 16,400 and 18,000 people were in the WTC complex.
Of those, the vast majority evacuated safely.
As they rushed out, first responders rushed in trying to save those still trapped or injured.
The fires from the impacts were intensified by the planes’ burning jet fuel.
They weakened the steel support trusses, which attached each of the floors to the buildings’ exterior walls.
Along with the initial damage to the buildings’ structural columns, this ultimately caused both towers to collapse.
The five other buildings in the WTC complex were also destroyed because of damage sustained when the Twin Towers fell.
The collapse of the buildings left the site devastated.
Thousands of volunteers came to Ground Zero to help with the rescue, recovery, and clean-up efforts, and on May 30, 2002, the last piece of WTC steel was ceremonially removed.
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Yes|No Islam is the world’s second-largest religion.
An adherent of Islam is a Muslim.
Islam’s beliefs and practices center around two key sources: the Qur’an and the Hadith.
The Qur’an contains what Muslims believe is God’s final revelation, made to the Prophet Muhammad, Islam’s founder, more than 1,400 years ago.
The Hadith is a collection of Muhammad’s sayings and deeds during his life.
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Yes|No “Islamists” see Islam as a guiding ideology for politics and the organization of society.
That is, they believe that strict adherence to religious law should be the sole basis for a country’s law, as well as its cultural and social life.
While some Muslims believe this, many do not.
Islamist extremists believe violence is acceptable to achieve these ends.
Al-Qaeda is one of many Islamist extremist groups.
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Yes|No Al-Qaeda is an international Islamist extremist terrorist network founded in the late 1980s by Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a U.S. military operation on May 1, 2011, and others who were involved in the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
Their aim has been to overthrow governments in the Middle East, and elsewhere in the Muslim world, which do not strictly enforce a religiously sanctioned political and social order.
Attacks against the United States were intended to reduce American support for many of these governments; U.S. support was viewed by al-Qaeda as a major obstacle to creating a global order under Islamic authority.
They have claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks since the early 1990s, including the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and the 9/11 attacks.
They have also aligned themselves with and inspired other terrorist groups who have carried out attacks, including the 2002 Bali bombing, the 2004 Madrid train bombing, the 2005 London bombings, and the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, among many others.
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Yes|No The terrorists did not have the capacity to destroy the United States militarily, so they set their sights on symbolic targets instead.
The Twin Towers, as the centerpieces of the World Trade Center, symbolized globalization and America’s economic power and prosperity.
The Pentagon, as the headquarters for the U.S. Department of Defense, serves as a symbol of American military power.
It is thought that Flight 93 was headed to the Capitol building, the center of American legislative government.
Al-Qaeda hoped that, by attacking these symbols of American power, they would promote widespread fear throughout the country and severely weaken the United States’ standing in the world community, ultimately supporting their political and religious goals in the Middle East and Muslim world.
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Yes|No Fifteen of the 19 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia.
Two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Lebanon, and one was from Egypt.
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Yes|No Al-Qaeda was based in Afghanistan.
They operated training camps there, and openly lived in the country with the support of the Taliban, an Islamist group that ruled the country.
On September 20, 2001, in a speech to a joint session of Congress, former President George W.
Bush asserted: “Any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.” No distinction was made between a harboring state and the terrorists it was harboring.
The U.S. government insisted that the Taliban immediately hand over the terrorists and close the training camps or face an attack from the United States.
When they refused, “Operation Enduring Freedom” was launched on October 7, 2001, less than a month after the attacks of 9/11.
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