September 11 Attacks
Terrorism History: September 11 Attacks
Introduction to September 11 Attacks
The events of September 11, 2001, have no precedent in the history of terrorism. On that day 19 terrorists belonging to bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization hijacked four passenger aircraft shortly after they departed from airports in Boston, Massachusetts; Newark, New Jersey; and Washington, D.C. The first plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City shortly before 9:00 am. About 15 minutes later, a second aircraft struck the south tower. Shortly afterward, a third plane crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth aircraft crashed into a field in rural Pennsylvania after its passengers, hearing by cell phone of the other hijackings, attempted to take control of the plane from the hijackers before they could strike another target. Before September 11, terrorists had killed no more than about 1,000 Americans, in the United States and abroad, during the modern era of international terrorism, which began in 1968. Approximately three times that number perished on September 11.
The attacks also showed a level of patience and detailed planning rarely seen among terrorist movements today. The hijackers stunned the world with their determination to kill themselves and take the lives of the hijacked passengers and crews as well as the lives of thousands of people working in or visiting the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The United States reacted by declaring a global war against terrorism. In the first phase of the war, U.S. forces launched a massive attack on al-Qaeda’s training and logistics bases in Afghanistan and toppled Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban movement. The Taliban had provided bin Laden and his followers with sanctuary and an opportunity to plan and orchestrate their worldwide terrorist campaign. See also September 11 Attacks.
The September 11 attacks prompted intense scrutiny of why the United States government had failed to detect or thwart the attacks-and what it should do to prevent future attacks. In 2003 a congressional inquiry detailed systemic problems in the U.S. government’s counterterrorism efforts prior to the attacks. It revealed how the terrorists had entered and remained in the United States without raising suspicions, and how key opportunities to disrupt the attack were missed because of poor communication between the FBI, CIA, and other government agencies.
In 2004 an independent, bipartisan commission released an exhaustive account of the circumstances surrounding the attacks. The 9/11 Commission, known in full as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, found “failures of imagination, policy, capability, and management” across the government. Government leaders, it said, had failed to fully appreciate the sophistication and lethality of al-Qaeda and the probability that the group would launch an attack on U.S. soil.
The commission recommended a three-pronged strategy for preventing future attacks: (1) continuing to root out and attack terrorists, (2) preventing the further growth of Islamist terrorism, and (3) developing better protections against terrorist attacks. As part of this strategy, the commission recommended several changes in government structure. It proposed the creation of a national intelligence director to coordinate all intelligence-gathering work. It also urged the establishment of a National Counterterrorism Center to analyze all terrorism-related intelligence and to plan counterterrorism operations.” (1)
Resources
Notes and References
- Information about September 11 Attacks in the Encarta Online Encyclopedia
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