USA · updated 2h ago · 3 min read
Al Qaeda Hijackers Crash Planes Into World Trade Center, Pentagon, Killing Nearly 3,000
2,977 people died in attacks on World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Flight 93. Four hijacked planes were used by al-Qaeda militants.
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11 of 12 outlets skipped it: NYT runs an Afghanistan war photojournalism retrospective.
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25 Years After 9/11
On the morning of 11 September 2001, 19 terrorists from the Islamist extreme group al Qaeda hijacked four commercial aircraft and crashed two of them into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City, while a third plane crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.
“19 terrorists from the Islamist extreme group al Qaeda hijacked four commercial aircraft”
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 Twin Towers ultimately collapsed, due to the damage from the impacts and subsequent fires, and nearly 3,000 people were killed from 93 different countries.
The Pentagon lost 184 civilians and servicemembers and 40 people were killed on Flight 93, and the attacks were described as the worst attack on American soil since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.
After the Taliban refused to turn over the mastermind of the attacks, Osama Bin Laden, Operation Enduring Freedom officially began 7 October 2001 with American and British bombing strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
Forever-War Comparisons
As the 9/11 anniversary approached, Reuters said Donald Trump’s war on Iran was drawing comparisons in foreign policy circles to the long, highly divisive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and analysts warned it could become his own version of “the Forever Wars.”
Sinan Ülgen of the Center for International Policy said Trump broke a constraint in Washington after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, adding, "Trump broke an important constraint that hardened in Washington after the Iraq and Afghanistan wars: avoiding the opening of a large, open-ended war in the Middle East."
Reuters reported that six months into the war, the United States had sunk into a war of attrition punctuated by waves of fighting, embodied by this week’s reciprocal attacks on oil tankers as Trump tried to tighten the economic squeeze on Tehran.
The same Reuters analysis said Iran’s disruption of oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz pushed U.S. gasoline prices higher, while White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Trump alone "had the courage" to confront Iran over its nuclear program.
Reuters also said analysts warned the war was likely to continue beyond the U.S. midterm elections in November, when anti-war voters could threaten the Republican Party’s grip on Congress.
What Comes Next
The consequences of the post-9/11 era, the BBC said, redirected the course of international politics and redrew security priorities and relations between states, with the attacks targeting the towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense in Washington.
“the attacks killed about three thousand people and pushed the United States to launch what became known as the War on Terror”
The BBC reported that the attacks killed about three thousand people and pushed the United States to launch what became known as the War on Terror, with a few weeks later the United States beginning its war in Afghanistan aimed at toppling the Taliban regime and pursuing al-Qaeda.
In a separate account of the Afghanistan timeline, Sopitas said the United States decided to invade Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime and capture the leaders responsible for the terrorist attacks, and it said the operation began in October 2001.
Sopitas reported that in 2011 the number of U.S. soldiers reached its peak of 100,000, while NATO participated with about 40,000, and it said U.S. special forces located and killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan two years later.
Sopitas added that it was not until August 2021 that, after a failed peace agreement and Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from the country, the foreign military force left entirely and the Taliban advanced without resistance and took control of the capital.