Terrorist Attacks

On Tuesday, 11 September 2001, nineteen constituents of the Islamic terrorist assembly Al Qaeda perpetrated a devastating, deadly assault on the joined States, crashing airplanes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre, killing thousands. The attacks shattered Americans' sense of security, threw the nation into a state of crisis, and triggered a months-long war in Afghanistan and an expanded worldwide "war on terrorism."

On the morning of 11 September, four groups of terrorists hijacked jetliners departing from Boston; Newark, New Jersey; and Washington, D.C. one time airborne, the terrorists, some of who had gone to air travel school in the joined States, killed the planes' pilots and took command of the aircrafts. At 8:46 A.M., the first plane flew directly into the north tower of the World Trade Centre in southern Manhattan, tearing a gaping hole in the building and setting it ablaze. Seventeen minutes later, a second plane flew into the centre's south tower, causing similar damage. At 9:43 A.M., a third plane fell into the Pentagon in Virginia, shattering one wing of the government's military headquarters. The fourth plane appeared going for Washington, D.C., but at 10:10 A.M. it smashed into in western Pennsylvania, apparently after travellers, who had learned of the other attacks through dialogues on their cellular telephones, rushed the terrorists. Compounding the horror, the south and north towers of the Trade Centre, their structures weakened by the heat of the blazes, collapsed entirely, at 10:05 and 10:28 A.M., respectively. The attack was seen as an act of war, likened to Japan's 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour that brought the United States into World War II (Alani, 51).

As Washington, D.C., contended with a nationwide urgent situation, New York town faced an unprecedented urban emergency. Businesses shut for the day (and in some cases much longer), as did the subways. Manhattan became an ocean of human beings escaping the lower end of the isle by foot. Bridges and tunnels leading into the borough were closed. The municipal prime elections arranged for that day, encompassing the mayoral challenge, were postponed for two weeks. The stock market, located near the Trade Centre, closed for the rest of the week. Rudolph Giuliani, the city's contentious mayor, won widespread praise for his assured, can do, and humane public posture throughout the urgent situation. In December, Time magazine named him "Man of the Year (Rihani, 2010: 64)."

American agents had little problem identifying the terrorists or how they accomplished their feat. Mostly Egyptians, Saudis, and Yemenis, the perpetrators included both recent immigrants and those who had dwelled in the joined States for some years. Some had currently been under suspicion but had managed to hide their whereabouts. Authorities also alleged that Zacarias Moussaoui, a French Muslim of Moroccan descent who had been arrested in August after suspicious behaviour at a flight school, was intended to be the twentieth hijacker in the plot.

Bin Laden and his associates had hit before. They engineered the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing, the 1996 assault on an American ...