Great History

The operation was practised on one to one replicas of the compound by an elite squad of Seal Team Six operatives which were built in Nevada and Virginia. On April 28th, the operatives arrived in Jalalabad and awaited instructions.

That night, Obama was restless. If the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden were faulty or if the Pakistani government discovered the operation, it could set back him being tracked down by months or perhaps even years. On the other hand, if it was a success, the most wanted man in the world would be brought to justice. On May 1st, Obama decided what to do.

Operation Neptune Spear began at around 11 pm local time, with 2 black hawk helicopters, which were modified to make less sound, approaching the compound in Abbottabad. Aboard the helicopters were the 23 SEALS, a translator and a dog named Cairo, who was there to look for hidden rooms and check for incoming Pakistani militant forces. 2 chinooks, carrying a spare 25 SEALS, were stationed at the ready incase of a hostile reaction from the Pakistani military.

The first helicopter was supposed to hover above the yard, letting the SEALS slide down a rope onto the lawn. However, due to weather conditions, the helicopter crashed inside the lawn. No-one was injured but they had lost the element of surprise. The SEALS from helicopter 1 breached the gates and moved through the compound whilst a group from helicopter 2, which touched down safely just outside the compound, were deterring neighbouring villagers.

3 SEALS from helicopter 1 split off to deal with the guest house whilst the SEALS not tasked with crowd control from helicopter 2 breached from the north. Those who went to deal with the guest house encountered Ahmed, to whom they engaged in a small firefight, resulting in the death of Ahmed. Meanwhile, the other SEALS managed to breach the main building, killing Ahmed’s brother and his brother’s wife.

After the stairway was breached, bin Laden’s 23-year-old son, Khalid bin Laden was killed in the stairwell. On the third floor, they discovered a tall thin man, peering out from behind the doorway of a bedroom. The SEALS took fire but either missed or landed non-lethal shots. One of the women in the room made a motion as if to charge at the lead SEAL but was shot in the leg. Robert O’Neill charged past the leader and spotted the man behind a woman, with his hands on her shoulders. As he went to push her, O’Neill shot the man twice in the head and once more as he crumpled to the floor.

Over the radio, the White house staff heard “For God and country. Geronimo. Geronimo. Geronimo.” That was the code word for an enemy killed in action. The most hated man in the USA, the most wanted man on the planet, the architect behind the deaths of 3,000 innocent American lives was finally dead.

There were no casualties on the American side with only 5 dead inside the compound. The assault was completed in only 15 minutes, with the rest of the time spent collecting hard drives whilst a demolition team destroyed any evidence of the helicopter crash. One of the chinooks helped the SEALS home as well as carrying the corpse of bin Laden, to a safehouse where his identity was officially confirmed.

For three months after 9/11, new leads evaded the CIA and all the leads that they previously had went cold. This was even more troublesome for them when you consider that they very nearly looked evil in the eye. Towards the tail end of the Afghan Invasion, a battle was staged at Tora Bora. Afghan troops embedded themselves in the mountains of Tora Bora, with the possible objective of keeping Bin Laden safe. Whilst the battle raged on, it is believed that Bin Laden slipped into the neighbouring nation of Pakistan. Only 20 captives were detained and for a long time, none of them gave anything away. Until one of them did.

Previously off the FBI’s radar, Muhammad al-Qahtani denied any involvement in Al-Qaeda and the attacks on September 11th, saying that he was in Afghanistan to pursue his interests in falconry. However, once he was fingerprinted, the investigators realised that they already had a record of him.

On August 4th 2001, a little over 5 weeks before the attacks, al-Qahtani attempted to enter the United States at Orlando Airport. With $2,800 in cash and a one way ticket from Dubai to Orlando on him, the officer at customs denied him entry to the US, suspecting him of being an illegal immigrant. Furthermore, a call was made from Orlando Airport on that day to a number that investigators knew was connected to Al-Qaeda in the UAE. After scanning through hours upon hours of security footage of the airport in search of another lead, they discovered a rental car. A rental car which was currently being hired by Mohamed Atta, the ringleader behind the attacks and the main pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre. Investigators believed that Atta had arrived to pick up al-Qahtani, believing al-Qahtani to possibly be one of the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, being the rumoured 20th hijacker. Al-Qahtani was among many Al-Qaeda informants who managed to give investigators a lead on the whereabouts of Bin Laden.

Another one of these informants was Abu Zubaydah, who was arrested in a US-Pakistani raid on Faisalabad safehouses in Pakistan in March 2002. He was interrogated until he ratted out Khalid Sheikh-Mohammed, Al-Qaeda’s operational commander, who had been the planner behind the attacks on America. Furthermore, Qahtani revealed that Khalid had introduced him to a man in July 2001. This man’s name was Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.

Even with all this information being revealed, they were no closer to finding bin Laden. The man’s name was obviously a pseudonym, being a direct translation to “The Father of Ahmed from Kuwaiti”. However, they knew bin Laden could still communicate. Tapes would come through and investigators believed that bin Laden could have possible contact with more minor leaders inside Al-Qaeda The investigators decided to look through bin Laden’s courier network, the people who transmitted letters and documents to and from bin Laden, in a vain attempt to try and find where he was hiding. It would be a long time before any results came in.

Forces from Kurdistan apprehended a man called Hassan Ghul in January 2004. Ghul was carrying a letter addressed solely to Osama bin Laden. He was later handed over to the Americans, who claimed that the man behind the name of al-Kuwaiti operated as a personal courier to bin Laden. However, conflicting information emerged. While Ghul claimed that al-Kuwaiti had a much higher role in the chain of Al-Qaeda’s command, with him being on friendly terms with Khalid and his successor, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, Khalid and al-Libbi vehemently denied these claims, with Khalid claiming that al-Kuwaiti had retired and was long since inactive. When investigations expanded, a man named Riduan Isamuddin, or Hambali, came forward. Hamabli was the leader of an affiliate group of Al-Qaeda from South-East Asia. He claimed that Kuwaiti played a key role, with him saying that al-Kuwaiti managed a safehouse in Karachi during the Taliban fleeing from Afghanistan. This conflicting information about al-Kuwaiti only made him a higher priority for investigators, making them believe that he must be in a higher position inside Al-Qaeda.

While much of the information acquired from these prisoners was vital in the capture of bin Laden, it was obtained through questionable methods in the US’ interrogation area called Guantanamo Bay. Many prisoners were subjected to various torture methods, including, but not limited to water boarding, sleep deprivation and forced nudity. Zubaydah drew and described his torture in graphic detail.

Among the images [published, one of them shows] masked agents physically threatening Zubaydah with anal rape. […] In another image, Zubaydah draws himself chained in the nude in front of a female interrogator. A further drawing shows guards threatening to desecrate the Qur’an – techniques which were never officially approved by the justice department.

Ed Pilkington of The Guardian “‘The forever prisoner’: Abu Zubaydah’s drawings expose the US’s depraved torture policy”

Mark Denbeaux, Zubaydah’s lawyer had Zubaydah draw these pictures. He stated that:

He was the first person to be tortured, having been approved by the Department of Justice based on facts that the CIA knew to be false. His drawings are the ultimate repudiation of the failure and abuses of torture.

Denbeaux speaking on Zubaydah

These were called “enhanced interrogation techniques” by CIA officials. A 712 page long fraction of 6,700 long Committee report claims that not only were these torture techniques not effective in capturing Osama bin Laden but also damaged the standing of the United States in the world of foreign politics.

Eventually, in 2007, the CIA finally attached a real name to al-Kuwaiti through an unknown foreign intelligence service. His real name was Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed, a Pakistani who lived in Kuwait for most of his childhood. It would not be until 2010 when they could finally track him down. Through phone calls, they were able to track Ahmed to Peshawar in northern Pakistan, where he was tailed by a Pakistani operative for the CIA back to his home. When they reached Ahmed’s home, the investigator’s were surprised.

What they found was a large mansion encased inside walls that were 10-18 feet high. These walls were topped with barbed wire and were sparsely populated by 4 gates littered around the compound border. If this was where Ahmed was living, investigators thought, then bin Laden could possibly be here also. Upon investigation of the compound, they found that only 3 people would go outside the mansion inside the compound, Ahmed, his brother and a mysterious figure who regularly walked around the interior courtyard on a daily basis. This figure was tall, thin, wore a pashtun dress and a prayer cap. When photos were captured, they were not very clear. This mysterious figure was nicknamed Pacer.

Whether Pacer was bin Laden or not, Barack Obama knew he needed to act sooner rather than later. Many options were considered. Assaulting bin Laden with the assistance of the Pakistani Government was entirely out of the question. Pakistan had previously favoured the Taliban in their escape from Afghanistan and had previously harboured many other members of Al-Qaeda. Bombing raids were favoured by the majority of the President’s advisors but Obama was concerned about civilian casualties and the difficulty of confirming whether they had eliminated bin Laden so ruled that out. Eventually, they settled on an aerial to ground assault, in which bin Laden was either captured or killed and the Pakistani Government would not be notified. This would be extra risky, considering that the compound is only 3 and a half kilometres away, or 2 miles away, from a Pakistani Military Academy.

I would like to touch on one important point in this address. The actions by these young men who destroyed the United States and launched the storm of planes against it have done a good deed. They transferred the battle into the US heartland. Let the United States know that with God’s permission, the battle will continue to be waged on its territory until it leaves our lands, stops its support for the Jews, and lifts the unjust embargo on the Iraqi people who have lost more than one million children. The Americans should know that the storm of plane attacks will not abate, with God’s permission. There are thousands of the Islamic nation’s youths who are eager to die just as the Americans are eager to live.

Sulaiman Abu Gaith claiming responsibility for 9/11 on behalf of Al-Qaeda in a video on Al Jazeera, 2001

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, US intelligence agencies intensified their investigation into Osama bin Laden and the network he led. Bin Laden had already been identified before 9/11 as the head of al-Qaeda, which had carried out earlier attacks on US targets, including the 1998 bombings of American embassies in East Africa and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Intelligence suggested that they were being housed in Afghanistan, controlled by the Taliban, a militant Islamist group that had emerged in the mid-1990s from the extremist elements of the Mujahideen. Drawing support from religious students educated in Pakistani Islamic education institutions and local warlords, the Taliban promised to restore order amid Afghanistan’s civil war following the collapse of the communist government. By 2001, they controlled most of the country and provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, allowing the group to plan and train for international attacks in exchange for loyalty and support.

While bin Laden initially denied direct involvement in 9/11, multiple sources, including intercepted communications, videotapes, and statements from captured al-Qaeda operatives, confirmed that he had authorised and overseen the attacks. By 2004, he publicly acknowledged responsibility. Evidence indicated that al-Qaeda had operated as a coordinated transnational network, with bin Laden at its helm, rather than as a loose collection of extremists acting independently. The US initially sought a diplomatic resolution, demanding that the Taliban surrender bin Laden and dismantle terrorist training camps. The Taliban responded that they would consider extradition only if evidence of bin Laden’s guilt was presented and if he were tried in an Islamic court, conditions that Washington rejected. With negotiations stalling, Bush issued an ultimatum, to surrender al-Qaeda’s leadership or be treated as enemies of the United States.

[T]he United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban. Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land. Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens, you have unjustly imprisoned.  Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country.  Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities. Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.  

These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The Taliban must act, and act immediately.  They will hand over the terrorists, or they will share in their fate.

Bush’s ultimatum, September 20th, 2001

Congress authorised the use of force and negotiations rapidly collapsed. On 7 October 2001, US and allied air strikes began against Taliban and al-Qaeda positions. Ground operations followed, coordinated with the Northern Alliance, an Afghan coalition opposed to Taliban rule. By the end of the year, the Taliban regime had fallen, and a new Western-backed government was installed in Kabul. However, bin Laden escaped during the Battle of Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan and fled into Pakistan, while Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters dispersed into rural and mountainous regions, beginning a prolonged insurgency. Bin Laden was eventually killed in his safe house in Abbotobad, Pakistan, in 2011.

Once the occupation began, two new tasks fell upon the Americans and the other coalition forces that invaded, to reconstruct a new new government in a war torn nation whilst also countering terrorism. Due to the American occupation, insurgency groups had sprung up out of the remnants of the Taliban, who had established training camps in Pakistan. Much like Vietnam before it, the insurgents used asymetric warfare to counter the Americans, often resorting to disguising as civilians or using women and children to perpetrate terror attacks. Many Conservative media outlets struggled to justify Bush’s actions in both Afghanistan in Iraq as that war developed, but a teenager with genocidal coded writing found a way.

I am getting really sick of people who whine about “civilian casualties.” Maybe I’m a hard-hearted guy, but when I see in the newspapers that civilians in Afghanistan or the West Bank were killed by American or Israeli troops, I don’t really care. In fact, I would rather that the good guys use the Air Force to kill the bad guys, even if that means some civilians get killed along the way. One American soldier is worth far more than an Afghan civilian.

[…]

The Afghans tolerated and supported the Taliban for years, no matter what President Bush says. A group doesn’t conquer 95 percent of a country unless it has some support among the populace. The Afghans are fundamentalist Muslims. They didn’t seem to mind too much that their women were treated like dogs or that the Taliban enforced Shariah (Muslim law). So frankly, it doesn’t matter to me if some of their “civilians” get killed for involvement with the enemy. I’m glad the U.S. military decided to use a massive air campaign rather than going in full force with ground troops. The fewer dead American soldiers, the better.

[…]

If only Israel had acted as decisively as America did in Kabul, it would have gone in with F-16s and leveled Jenin. Civilian casualties? So be it. That might have struck a note of fear into the Palestinians – putting in ground troops sure doesn’t. […] In the end, this is a war to save humanity from the barbarity of fundamentalist Islam. It is inevitable for enemy civilians to be killed in war.

Ben Shapiro, Townhall, July 2002

In Afghanistan, Obama initially escalated US involvement rather than ending it. In 2009 he authorised a troop “surge” aimed at weakening the Taliban and stabilising the Afghan government before a gradual withdrawal in an attempt to avoid permanent occupation, but prevent outright collapse. The result was an extended war fought increasingly through training missions, special forces operations, and airpower, rather than conventional invasion. These operations were justified as a way to combat terrorism without deploying large numbers of troops, but they raised legal and ethical concerns, especially when multiple civilians were killed. Most notably was the airstrike on Kunduz Hospital in Afghanistan, which killed 15 innocent civilians. The left accused him of being no different than the neo-Conservatives who started the war whilst the right saw him as sabotaging a plan that would’ve made Afghanistan stable if he’d just waited a few more months. The expansion of remote warfare also allowed Obama to claim he was ending wars while simultaneously broadening the geography of counterterrorism operations.

Due to these mass airstrikes, the occupying Americans began to slowly be despised by the Afghan population, leading to the Taliban making a comeback. They would organise terrorist attacks in the country, that would end up killing hundreds of innocent people and coalition soldiers. US Soldiers began training the Afghan army to combat the terrorists once they left and equipped them with American Weapons.

Twenty years passed since the Invasion of Afghanistan, and the war was still going. Whilst many saw Afghanistan as the greatest symbol of the “forever war,” the actual logistics of withdrawal were much harder than they seemed. If the President was to pull out troops, it would cause the almost immediate collapse of the Afghan government and the return of the Taliban, which would be political suicide to whoever was President when the collapse occurred. However, if the President didn’t pull out troops, they’d be open to the accusation of intentionally prolonging the war far longer than it had already been going on for. Donald Trump’s solution to this impossible dilemma was an incredibly cynical yet effective one, at least for him politically.

He decided to remove the Afghan government from the equation and directly negotiate with the Taliban. From 2018 to 2020, multiple ceasefire deals were proposed but ultimately shot down by the Taliban. However, a peace deal was signed in February 2020. An incredibly simplistic interpretation of Trump’s deal with the Taliban involved the withdrawal of all NATO troops from Afghanistan, a Taliban pledge to prevent al-Qaeda from operating in areas under Taliban control, a Taliban pledge to not attack United States troops and talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.

Trump did not see the withdrawal of troops during his presidency however, due to his defeat in 2020. In fact, Trump intentionally extended it into the next term, so if he won he could portray himself as the guy who got the US out of Afghanistan but if he lost and it went horribly wrong, which was inevitable, Trump could simply blame the next guy. After his loss in the 2020 election but before Joe Biden’s inauguration, he purged a large amount of the Pentagon staff and replaced them with Trump loyalists, with orders to pull out as many troops as quickly as possible. Biden was now faced with an even more impossible version of the existing Afghanistan dilemma, either: Pull the unsustainably small deployment, which wouldn’t give enough time or resources to the Afghan government to peaceably transition and functionally guarantee immediate collapse or; deploy more troops which would make transition more sustainable but going back on the deal, betraying the Taliban and perceived as escalating the war that you promised to end. Very much a rock and a hard place position.

“I’m now the fourth United States President to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan: two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth.”

Biden in a speech in the White House

In an attempt to honour the deal set up by his predecessor, Biden went ahead with the withdrawal. This announcement gave the Taliban an opportunity to take back control, advancing on Kabul, forcing many Afghan soldiers to surrender themselves to the Taliban, before the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was eventually toppled. In one of the largest airlifts in history, 122,000 people were airlifted from Kabul airport. American soldiers managed to fend off the Taliban for over 2 weeks as the Taliban captured Kabul. The last US plane left on August 30th, with the Taliban capturing the airport the next day and declaring a victory, taking the large amounts of US weapons left behind. The War in Afghanistan is considered by many to not only be a somewhat pointless war but its ending is considered to be one of the greatest military catastrophes in history. Much of the blame is pinned on Biden, but it could be argued that Trump intentionally set this up and political historians argue that it would’ve been a catastrophe for anyone. As of today, the Taliban still run the country, and are not recognised by any nation as a legitimate government, with only 11 countries supporting the Taliban government.

Casualties

• Afghan Security Forces – 66,000-69,000
• Coalition – 3,579
• Taliban – 52,893
• Civilians – 70,000

On August 6th 2001, the recently elected President George W. Bush received his daily brief. This day’s brief was titled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US. This report, which was declassified in 2004, tells of a man called Osama bin Laden, who had been planning an attack on the USA since the late 1990s. The majority of the brief details previous attempts by Bin Laden to attack the United States. However, the ending of the report stated that since 1999, the FBI had been conducting investigations, reporting that Bin Laden was “[indicating] patterns of suspicious activity in this country, consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.” The briefing highlighted a growing threat from al-Qaeda, the Islamist militant organisation that bin Laden allegedly ran, but did not specify a timeline, method, or target. In hindsight, it became one of several missed warnings that were not translated into preventative action.

Up until 08:46 that morning, September 11th 2001 was a very average and very boring Tuesday, as had been the case much of the rest of 2001. No-one knew that American and world history would change that day. Captain John Ogonowski and First Officer Thomas McGuinness Jr, alongside nine cabin crew members, were on board American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 carrying 81 passengers out of Logan International Airport in Boston. At the time, airline security was seen as a relatively benign procedure, compared to today. Whilst American airport security is now run by federal employees of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), they used to be managed by the airline companies themselves, with limited requirements being regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), such as basic metal detectors and rudimentary x-ray machines. They weren’t particularly thorough with their checks, intent on making security a background procedure to allow family members to the gates to wish their loved ones goodbye as well as due to cost cutting and low levels of training. As a result, items such as boxcutters and other small knives were not prioritised, as the typical threat was bombs, following the bombings of Air India Flight 182 in 1985 and Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. This meant five men slipped through airport security with such items, largely unfazed.

Five men, led by Mohamed Atta, had managed to get through airport security. However, he was nearly stopped in his tracks. Atta began getting overly irate at a man at the ticket counter at Portland International Airport in Maine, as he was told he would have to check in again upon his arrival at Logan International. Fearing he’d be accused of racially profiling Atta, the ticket officer let him through. Atta was also stopped a second time for extra luggage scrutiny, before he was once again allowed to pass. Atta, as well as a second man, landed in Boston before 7:00, where they met up with the other three men. The men got through Logan’s airport security, with three of them facing luggage checks, before they boarded the plane in business class at 07:40. The flight took off at 07:59, around 14 minutes behind schedule. The fate of the people aboard that flight was sealed.

At 08:14, Peter Zalewski, an air traffic controller, lost contact with Flight 11. Operating within Boston’s airspace, the pilots were failing to respond to any form of contact with ground control. Whilst he wasn’t initially worried, he began to get worried when the flight changed course and its transponder turned offline. Typically, this means that there has been a massive system failure. But, when Zalewski checked the more primitive Primary Radar Returns, he could tell that the plane was still up in the air. This meant that the transponders had been manually turned off.

At 08:19, Flight Attendant Betty Ong contacted the American Airlines operations centre from a phone at the end of the plane. She identified herself before detailing that someone had been stabbed in business class and that someone had sprayed Mace in the cabin as a form of crowd control. She later elaborated that the stabbed individuals consisted of Daniel Lewin and two flight attendants, Karen Martin and Barbara “Bobbi” Arestegui. Lewin, an American-Israeli citizen, reportedly died from his wounds before the crash, making him the first victim of the attacks.

Five minutes later, Zalewski received a mysterious call from Flight 11, a voice later identified Atta. It’s believed that he was attempting to broadcast a message to the plane cabin but had accidentally sent a message to the entire Boston network, including air traffic control. He detailed that they would be returning to the airport and ordering everyone to “just stay quiet.” Nine minutes later, they receive a second similar message.

This was a great concern for Zalewski, but his superiors and peers were less worried. For starters, they couldn’t figure out what the garbled message said for quite some time. In addition, the precedent for hijackings of this sort was to make a demand of some kind. The most famous hijacking in American history up to this point, the DB Cooper incident, involved a request for thousands of dollars but, as far as they could tell, no such demands had been made aboard Flight 11. However, they still determined that they had a rogue 767 flying in Boston’s airspace. However, in order to do something about it before it entered New York’s airspace, as the new flight path indicated, there was an incredibly long chain of command in order to notify the entire system of the rogue plane and authorise military assistance. The notification had to go up from the Boston Air Traffic Control Centre (ARTCC) up through the FAA chain of command to the Pentagon, where the order to authorise escorts from the Secretary of Defence has to go all the way back down through North American Aerospace Defence Command, NORAD, before orders can be issued to Defence Sites. Part of the issue was that this was a chain of command developed during the Cold War for external enemy attacks. It was not designed for military intervention on a hijacking by an external enemy.

On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen.

The 9/11 Commission Report, pg. 18

Soon, they notified the other potential airspaces that the plane might enter and managed to get the information up to the FAA Headquarters. However, for reasons that still remain a mystery to this day, the information stalled and went no further. As a result, a controller broke protocol and directly contacted the North East Defence Sector (NEADS). Major-General Larry Arnold, Commander of the Continental US Region of NORAD, also defied protocol and authorised the deployment of F-15 fighter jets from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in order to monitor Flight 11, without seeking instructions from the higher chain of command. It would take approximately 10-15 minutes for the F-15s to get from their base to New York. This was far too late.

In New York City, brothers Jules and Gédéon Naudet, a pair of French-American filmmakers, were working on their second film: a documentary about the crew of a fire engine in the city. As a part of this documentary, Jules joined New York fire fighters whilst they were inspecting a possible gas leak from a storm drain at the intersection of Church and Lispenard Streets. This drain was about 0.8 miles away from the Twin Towers, some of the tallest buildings in the world and the largest parts of the World Trade Centre complex, a premier commercial and business complex in downtown Manhattan. As Jules filmed the drain at 8:46, the passing sound of a commercial airliner could be heard from overhead. Thinking it unusual that a plane was this close to the ground in this area of town, Jules followed where the plane was going with his camera.

Flight 11 struck the north side of the North Tower of the World Trade Centre at 8:46:40. The impact of the plane hitting the tower killed everyone on board the flight as well as countless others in between the 93rd and 99th floors of the building. With the floors above and below trapped by rubble on the stairs and elevators out of commission above the 50th floor, many jumped rather than facing what may come next. The 10,000 gallons of fuel in the plane atomised into a fine mist on impact, which ignited with sparks from electrical equipment in the building and the plane and led to an explosion and subsequent fire that burned for over 100 minutes. Zalewski, who recieved the news almost immediately, retreated to the Boston ARTCC car park where he fought back tears of guilt for not being able to stop the disaster sooner. The New York and New Jersey Port Authority, which oversees much of the regional transportation infrastructure, including bridges, tunnels, airports, and seaports within the Port of New York and New Jersey’s jurisdiction, did not deem evacuating the South Tower as a necessary precaution, under the assumption that the initial crash was just an accident. However, their opinion would change all too late.

A few minutes after the crash, at 8:51, Dave Bottiglia, an air traffic controller at New York’s ARTCC, lost contact with United Airlines Flight 175. This plane had taken off from Logan International Airport under the command of Captain Victor Saracini and First Officer Michael Horrocks with seven cabin crew members and 65 passengers. They took off around 14 minutes after their scheduled departure of 8:00. At 8:41, they reported suspicious transmissions they had received as they were departing from the airport. These were identified as the messages that Atta had accidentally broadcast across the entire Boston network. They felt it prudent to notify New York’s airspace as they entered it from Boston’s airspace. Bottiglia, who had received that message from United 175, was now in a similar position that Zalewski had been nearly an hour earlier. The transponder code was no longer updating and tried to notify the pilots of this error. However, assuming the pilots just weren’t paying attention, thought nothing of it. That was until he noticed a rapidly ascending and unrecognisable transponder code on his screen. Bottiglia initially believed these were two separate incidents, until he received information that the rogue plane was a United Airlines Boeing 767, the same plane as United 175.

Meanwhile Delta Airlines Flight 2315 was on a collision course with the rogue 175. Bottiglia yelled at the pilot to “Take any evasive action necessary,” leading to the plane narrowly missing 175 by only 300ft. Later, 175 nearly collided with TWA Flight 3, missing that one by only 500ft, and again with Midwest Express Flight 007 and missed that one by only 30ft. The pilot of 007 claimed that “I’ve never heard [Air Traffic Control] scream like that.” As this was going on, they suspected there had been a second hijacking aboard 175. Five men had boarded the flight, again with small knives in their luggage, and it is believed that they took control of the Airplane just before 8:51. One of the men, Marwan al-Shehhi, had called Atta’s cellphone at around 6:52. It is believed this call was to confirm that what came next was still going ahead. As New York ARTCC failed to contact the FAA, they instead called a smaller facility that, if their data was correct, should have had a clear view of Flight 175 and the already burning North Tower. Their assumption was correct, as they were on the phone with air traffic control as Flight 175 struck the South Tower of the World Trade Centre at 9:03. This was an image broadcast around the world, due to most news stations already covering the burning North Tower. An estimated 2 million people saw the live video of the plane hitting the tower.

It was only at this point that Boston managed to fully decipher what Atta had said on the message. When they realised he had said “planes” (plural), they immediately scrambled to alert all planes in the Boston airspace to heighten cockpit security before calling the FAA Command Centre to request that they spread the message to other planes across the country. However, despite the Command Centre assuring Boston that they would, they took no such action.

Meanwhile, Indianapolis ARTCC lost contact with American Airlines Flight 77 at around 08:51. This flight took off from Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia and was piloted by Captain Charles Burlingame and First Officer David Charlebois, carrying 4 flight attendants and 58 passengers. Nothing was heard from Flight 77 until, at 09:37, the flight crashed with the Pentagon, the HQ of the United States Military. It’s believed that five hijackers took control of the plane shortly after 08:51, turned off the transponders and managed to make it vanish from the radar. It was initially interpreted as a crash upon the loss of contact so nothing was done to try and prevent the collision with the building. Everyone on board was killed immediately whilst 125 people within the building were killed or fatally injured.

Meanwhile United Airlines Flight 93 took off from Newark International Airport in New Jersey, around 10 miles from the Twin Towers. The flight left the airport only four minutes before Flight 11 struck the North Tower and over 40 minutes after its scheduled time of departure. Ed Ballinger, a United Airlines dispatcher, relayed a message to Captain Jason Dahl and First Officer LeRoy Homer Jr to “Beware any cockpit intrusion—Two [aircraft] hit World Trade Center” at 09:23. When Dahl sent back a message to confirm this statement, four hijackers breached the cockpit a mere two minutes later. Two mayday messages were sent out at 09:28 before the cockpit went quiet. A minute later, Bush went live on TV, during the middle of a public event to promote education initiatives, that America was facing a co-ordinated terrorist attack.

Meanwhile, passengers on board Flight 93 had been pushed to the back of the cabin, where all the Airfones on board the plane resided. Having communicated with their loved ones, they too learned of the scale of the attack. Not wanting any more lives to be lost, they began to organise. Despite being in the view and earshot of two of the hijackers, they continued to organise whilst the hijackers did nothing. Eventually a plan was concocted. Todd Beamer, a near-professional baseball player, made a request to Airplane Supervisor, Lisa Jefferson.

“Would you do one last thing for me?”

“Yes. What is it?”

“Would you pray with me?”

The passengers then recited the Lord’s Prayer together. At the end of this improvised sermon on the plane, Beamer concluded with a verse from Psalms 23

Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For thou art with me

The verse that Beamer recited on United 93, Psalms 23:4

Then Beamer told the other passengers and crew members “Are you guys ready? OK, let’s roll.”

The plane started moving around erratically as Ziad Jarrah, the pilot amongst the hijackers, asked his copilot “Is there something? A fight?” CeeCee Lyles, a flight attendant called her husband saying that the passengers were forcing their way into the cockpit of the aircraft. Jarrah turned the plane from side to side to knock the passengers off balance as he told the co-pilot that “They want to get in here. Hold, hold from the inside. Hold from the inside. Hold.” He then jerked the plane up and down 2 minutes into the assault. There was crashing, screaming and china and glass smashing. There were also shouts of pain from another hijacker outside the cockpit, presumed to be attacked. Jarrah stabilised the plane and asked, “Is that it? Shall we finish it off?” “No. Not yet,” says another hijacker, “When they all come, we finish it off.” Jarrah starts jerking the plane again and a passenger says, “In the cockpit. If we don’t, we’ll die.” And 16 seconds pass by. As a passenger screams, “Roll it!” they start using the food cart as a battering ram for the cockpit door. Having realised that the plan is over, Jarrah pushed the plane into a nosedive. The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that “The hijackers remained at the controls but […] the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them.” At 10:03, the plane crashed into a field outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board.

Back in New York, the towers, due to the sustained weakening from the fires, collapsed at 9:59 for the South Tower and 10:28 for the North Tower. Fires caused inside by other flammable objects within the buildings, such as paper and furniture reached over 1,000°C, leading to the weakening but not melting of the steel beams that held up the building. As a result, the top floors of the building collapsed onto the next, creating a domino effect and the collapse of the buildings. Due to the spread of the fire caused by debris, the 7th building in the complex also collapsed at 17:20. The fires were inaccessible to the FDNY and the interior sprinkler system had failed leading to the collapse of a critical support column and the building itself. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, consisting of the pilots, the flight crews, the passengers, the terrorists and members of the FDNY and NYPD.

I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.

George W. Bush on the site of ground zero

In their aftermath, a wide range of conspiracy theories emerged, claiming the attacks were an “inside job,” a false-flag operation, or involved foreign intelligence services such as the Israelis. While such claims persist in popular culture, no credible evidence has substantiated them, and they are rejected by mainstream investigators and historians. After the attacks, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, more commonly known as the 9/11 Commission, concluded that the catastrophe resulted less from a lack of information but instead from failures of coordination, communication, and urgency within the US government. Many argued that the Commission’s findings were limited by political constraints and that accountability for these failures was minimal. As a result, public debate shifted away from how the attacks occurred toward why repeated warnings were not translated into effective preventative action.

As a result of the attacks, Congress authorised the invasion of Afghanistan, due to the Taliban, the Islamist militant organisation running the country, housing al-Qaeda and their leader, Osama bin Laden. The invasion of Afghanistan is the only time where Article 5 of NATO has been invoked. In the aftermath of a series of anthrax attacks framed to look like they were by a jihadist group, Republican Congressmen and the Bush administration used it and 9/11 to pass the Patriot Act, a law that authorised the expansion of government surveillance on American citizens. The extent of this surveillance was revealed by Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, and revealed that the NSA was surveilling billions of people around the world. Parts of the act were eventually amended or appealed in 2015 following Snowden’s whistleblowing. The attack was also used by the US Government to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a war widely regarded as illegal under international law. Whilst many deemed the 1990s as “the end of history,” September 11th proved that it was merely the end of a chapter in a much wider story.