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September 11, 2001 attacks
Twin towers of the World Trade Center burning. United Airlines Flight 175 impacted the South Tower (right) after American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower (left).
Location	New York City, U.S. (1st & 2nd) Arlington Co, VA, U.S. (3rd) Near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, U.S.(4th)
Date	Tuesday, September 11, 2001 8:46 am – 10:28 am (UTC-4)
Target	World Trade Center and The Pentagon (fourth target is unknown, but suspected to be a location in Washington, D.C.; al-Qaeda claims it was to be the United States Capitol)
Attack type	Aircraft hijacking, Mass murder, Murder-suicide, Suicide attack
Deaths	2,998 (excluding the 19 hijackers)
Injured	6,291+
Perpetrators	al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden, see also Responsibility and Organizers on the right hand column

The September 11 attacks (often referred to as 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by al-Qaeda upon the United States. On that morning, terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the building, causing both buildings to collapse within two hours, destroying at least two nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania after passengers and members of the flight crew on the fourth aircraft attempted to retake control of their plane, which was heading for Washington, D.C.. There are no known survivors from any of the flights.

Excluding the 19 hijackers, 2,974 people died in the attacks. Another 24 were missing and presumed dead. The overwhelming majority of casualties were civilians, including nationals from over 90 different countries. In addition, the death of at least one person from lung disease was ruled by a medical examiner to be a result of exposure to dust from the World Trade Center's collapse, as rescue and recovery workers were exposed to airborne contaminants following the World Trade Center's collapse.

The United States responded to the attacks by declaring a War on Terrorism, launching an invasion of Afghanistan to depose the Taliban, who had harbored al-Qaeda terrorists, and enacting the USA PATRIOT Act. Many other nations also strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation and expanded law enforcement powers. Stock exchanges closed for almost a week, and posted enormous losses upon reopening, especially in the airline and insurance industries. The economy of Lower Manhattan ground to a halt, as billions of dollars in office space was damaged or destroyed.

The damage to the Pentagon was cleared and repaired within a year, and a small memorial built on the site. Rebuilding the World Trade Center site has proven more difficult, with controversy over possible designs as well as the pace of construction. The selection of the Freedom Tower for the site has drawn extensive criticism, forcing the abandonment of some parts of the project.

Attacks

Early in the morning on September 11, 2001, nineteen hijackers took control of four commercial airliners en route to San Francisco and Los Angeles from Boston, Newark, and Washington (Washington Dulles International Airport). The hijackers flew two of the airliners, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center. Another group of hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon. A fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 93, whose ultimate target was either the U.S. Capitol building or the White House, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

During the hijacking of the airplanes, the hijackers used box cutters to kill passengers and crew members, but some passengers were able to make phone calls using the cabin airphone service and mobile phones. They reported that several hijackers were aboard each plane. The hijackers had reportedly taken control of the aircraft by using knives and box-cutter knives to kill flight attendants and at least one pilot or passenger, including the captain of Flight 11, John Ogonowski. The 9/11 Commission established that two of the hijackers had recently purchased Leatherman multi-function hand tools. Some form of noxious chemical spray, such as tear gas or pepper spray, was reported to have been used on American 11 and United 175 to keep passengers out of the first-class cabin. A flight attendant on Flight 11, a passenger on Flight 175, and passengers on Flight 93 mentioned that the hijackers had bombs, but one of the passengers also mentioned he thought the bombs were fake. No traces of explosives were found at the crash sites. The 9/11 Commission Report believed the bombs were probably fake.

On United Airlines Flight 93, black box recordings revealed that crew and passengers attempted to seize control of the plane from the hijackers after learning through phone calls that similarly hijacked planes had been crashed into buildings that morning. According to the transcript of Flight 93's recorder, one of the hijackers gave the order to roll the plane once it became evident that they would lose control of the plane to the passengers. Soon afterward, the aircraft crashed into a field near Shanksville in Stonycreek Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, at 10:03:11 a.m. local time (14:03:11 UTC). Al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed mentioned in a 2002 interview with Yosri Fouda, an al Jazeera journalist, that Flight 93's target was the United States Capitol, which was given the code name "the Faculty of Law".

Three buildings in the World Trade Center Complex collapsed due to structural failure on the day of the attack. The south tower (2 WTC) fell at approximately 9:59 a.m., after burning for 56 minutes in a fire caused by the impact of United Airlines Flight 175. The north tower (1 WTC) collapsed at 10:28 a.m., after burning for approximately 102 minutes. When the north tower collapsed, debris heavily damaged the nearby 7 World Trade Center (7 WTC) building. Its structural integrity was further compromised by fires, and the building collapsed later in the day at 5:20 p.m.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched investigations into the cause of collapse for the three buildings, subsequently expanding the investigation to include questions over measures to prevent progressive collapse, such as fire resistance design and retrofitting of structural steel. The report into 1 WTC and 2 WTC was concluded in October 2005, and the investigation into 7 WTC is ongoing. The current NIST hypothesis attributes the collapse to "fire and/or debris induced structural damage."

The attacks created widespread confusion among news organizations and air traffic controllers across the United States. All international civilian air traffic was banned from landing on US soil for three days. Aircraft already in flight were either turned back or redirected to airports in Canada or Mexico. News sources aired unconfirmed and often contradictory reports throughout the day. One of the most prevalent of these reported that a car bomb had been detonated at the U.S. State Department's headquarters in Washington, D.C. Soon after reporting for the first time on the Pentagon crash, CNN and other media also briefly reported that a fire had broken out on the Washington Mall. Another report went out on the AP wire, claiming that a Delta Air Lines airliner—Flight 1989—had been hijacked. This report, too, turned out to be in error; the plane was briefly thought to represent a hijack risk, but it responded to controllers and landed safely in Cleveland, Ohio.

Casualties

There were 2,974 fatalities, excluding the 19 hijackers: 246 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors), 2,603 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon. An additional 24 people remain listed as missing. All of the fatalities in the attacks were civilians except for 55 military personnel killed at the Pentagon. More than 90 countries lost citizens in the attacks on the World Trade Center.

NIST estimated that approximately 17,400 civilians were in the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks, while turnstile counts from the Port Authority suggest that 14,154 people were typically in the Twin Towers by 8:45 a.m. The vast majority of people below the impact zone safely evacuated the buildings, along with 18 individuals who were in the impact zone in the south tower. 1,366 people died who were at or above the floors of impact in the North Tower. According to the Commission Report, hundreds were killed instantly by the impact, while the rest were trapped and died after the tower collapsed. As many as 600 people were killed instantly or were trapped at or above the floors of impact in the South Tower.

At least 200 people jumped to their deaths from the burning towers (as depicted in the photograph "The Falling Man"), landing on the streets and rooftops of adjacent buildings hundreds of feet below. Some of the occupants of each tower above its point of impact made their way upward toward the roof in hope of helicopter rescue, but the roof access doors were locked. No plan existed for helicopter rescues, and on September 11, the thick smoke and intense heat would have prevented helicopters from conducting rescues.

A total of 411 emergency workers who responded to the scene died as they attempted to implement rescue and fire suppression efforts. The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) lost 341 firefighters and 2 FDNY paramedics. The New York City Police Department lost 23 officers. The Port Authority Police Department lost 37 officers. Private EMS units lost 8 additional EMTs and paramedics.

Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank on the 101st–105th floors of One World Trade Center, lost 658 employees, considerably more than any other employer. Marsh Inc., located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald on floors 93–101 (the location of Flight 11's impact), lost 295 employees, and 175 employees of Aon Corporation were killed. After New York, New Jersey was the hardest hit state, with the city of Hoboken sustaining the most fatalities.

Weeks after the attack, the estimated death toll was over 6,000. The city was only able to identify remains for approximately 1,600 of the victims at the World Trade Center. The medical examiner's office also collected "about 10,000 unidentified bone and tissue fragments that cannot be matched to the list of the dead." Bone fragments were still being found in 2006 as workers were preparing to demolish the damaged Deutsche Bank Building.

Damage

In addition to the 110-floor Twin Towers of the World Trade Center itself, numerous other buildings at the World Trade Center site were destroyed or badly damaged, including 7 World Trade Center, 6 World Trade Center, 5 World Trade Center, 4 World Trade Center, the Marriott World Trade Center, and the World Financial Center complex and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. The Deutsche Bank Building across Liberty Street from the World Trade Center complex was later condemned due to the uninhabitable, toxic conditions inside the office tower, and is undergoing deconstruction. The Borough of Manhattan Community College's Fiterman Hall at 30 West Broadway was also condemned due to extensive damage in the attacks, and is slated for deconstruction. Other neighboring buildings including 90 West Street and the Verizon Building suffered major damage, but have since been restored. World Financial Center buildings, One Liberty Plaza, the Millenium Hilton, and 90 Church Street had moderate damage. Communications equipment atop the North Tower, including broadcast radio, television and two-way radio antenna towers were also destroyed, but media stations were quickly able to reroute signals and resume broadcasts. In Arlington County, a portion of the Pentagon was severely damaged by fire and one section of the building collapsed.

Rescue and recovery

The Fire Department of New York City (FDNY) quickly deployed 200 units (half of the department) to the site, whose efforts were supplemented by numerous off-duty firefighters and EMTs. The New York Police Department (NYPD) sent Emergency Service Units (ESU) and other police personnel. During the emergency response, FDNY commanders, the NYPD, and the Port Authority police had limited ability to share information and coordinate their efforts. The NYPD, FDNY, and Port Authority police did redundant searches for civilians, rather than coordinate efforts among the agencies. As conditions deteriorated, the NYPD received information from its helicopters, and were able to pass along evacuation orders that allowed most of its officers to safely evacuate before the buildings collapsed. However, radio communications between the NYPD and FDNY were incompatible and the information did not get to FDNY commanders. After the first tower collapsed, FDNY commanders experienced difficulties communicating evacuation orders to firefighters inside the towers due to malfunctioning radio repeater systems in the World Trade Center. 9-1-1 dispatchers also received information from callers that was not passed along. Within hours of the attack, a massive search and rescue operation was launched. Rescue and recovery efforts took months to complete.

Attackers and their motivation

The attacks were consistent with the overall mission statement of al-Qaeda, as set out in a 1998 fatwā issued by Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Ahmed Refai Taha, Mir Hamzah, and Fazlur Rahman. This statement begins by quoting the Koran as saying, "slay the pagans wherever ye find them" and concludes that it is the "duty of every Muslim" to "kill Americans anywhere." Bin Laden elaborated on this theme in his "Letter to America" of October 2002: "you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind: You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator."

Al-Qaeda

The origins of al-Qaeda date back to 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Soon after the invasion, Osama bin Laden traveled to Afghanistan where he helped organize Arab mujahideen and established the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) organization to resist the Soviets. In 1989, as the Soviets withdrew, MAK was transformed into a "rapid reaction force" in jihad against governments across the Muslim world. Under the guidance of al-Zawahiri, Osama became more radical. In 1996, bin Laden issued his first fatwā which called for American soldiers to leave Saudi Arabia.

In a second fatwā issued in 1998, bin Laden outlined his objections to American foreign policy towards Israel, as well as the continued presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia after the Gulf War. Bin Laden used Islamic texts to exhort violent action against American military and citizenry until the stated grievances are reversed, noting "ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries."

Planning of the attacks

The idea for the September 11 plot came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who first presented the idea to bin Laden in 1996. At that point, Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were in a period of transition, having just relocated back to Afghanistan from Sudan. The 1998 African Embassy bombings marked a turning point, with bin Laden intent on attacking the United States. In late 1998 or early 1999, bin Laden gave approval for Mohammed to go forward with organizing the plot. A series of meetings occurred in spring of 1999, involving Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy Mohammed Atef. Bin Laden provided leadership for the plot, along with financial support. Bin Laden was also involved in selecting people to participate in the plot, including choosing Mohamed Atta as the lead hijacker. As many as 27 members of al-Qaeda attempted to enter the United States to take part in the September 11 attacks. Mohammed provided operational support, such as selecting targets and helping arrange travel for the hijackers. Bin Laden overruled Mohammed, rejecting some potential targets such as the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles because "there was not enough time to prepare for such an operation".

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States was formed by the United States government and was commonly called the 9/11 Commission. It released its report on July 22, 2004, concluding that the attacks were conceived and implemented by members of al-Qaeda. The Commission stated that "9/11 plotters eventually spent somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 to plan and conduct their attack, but that the specific origin of the funds used to execute the attacks remained unknown."

Hijackers

Fifteen of the attackers were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon. In sharp contrast to the standard profile of suicide bombers, the hijackers were well-educated, mature adults, whose belief systems were fully formed.

Within hours of the attacks, the FBI was able to determine the names and in many cases the personal details of the suspected pilots and hijackers. Mohamed Atta's luggage, which did not make the connection from his Portland flight onto Flight 11, contained papers that revealed the identity of all 19 hijackers, and other important clues about their plans, motives, and backgrounds. On the day of the attacks, the National Security Agency intercepted communications that pointed to Osama bin Laden, as did German intelligence agencies.

On September 27, 2001, the FBI released photos of the 19 hijackers, along with information about the possible nationalities and aliases of many. The FBI investigation into the attacks, code named operation PENTTBOM, was the largest and most complex investigation in the history of the FBI, involving over 7,000 special agents. The United States government determined that al-Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, bore responsibility for the attacks, with the FBI stating "evidence linking al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable". The Government of the United Kingdom reached the same conclusion regarding al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden's declaration of a holy war against the United States, and a fatwā signed by bin Laden and others calling for the killing of American civilians in 1998, are seen by investigators as evidence of his motivation to commit such acts.

Bin Laden initially denied, but later admitted, involvement in the incidents. On September 16, 2001, bin Laden denied any involvement with the attacks by reading a statement which was broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel: "I stress that I have not carried out this act, which appears to have been carried out by individuals with their own motivation." This denial was broadcast on U.S. news networks and worldwide.

In November 2001, U.S. forces recovered a videotape from a destroyed house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, in which Osama bin Laden is talking to Khaled al-Harbi. In the tape, bin Laden admits foreknowledge of the attacks. The tape was broadcast on various news networks from December 13, 2001. His distorted appearance on the tape has been attributed to tape transfer artifact.

On December 27, 2001, a second bin Laden video was released. In the video, he states, "Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its support for Israel, which kills our people," but he stopped short of admitting responsibility for the attacks.

Shortly before the U.S. presidential election in 2004, in a taped statement, bin Laden publicly acknowledged al-Qaeda's involvement in the attacks on the U.S, and admitted his direct link to the attacks. He said that the attacks were carried out because "we are free…and want to regain freedom for our nation. As you undermine our security we undermine yours." Osama bin Laden says he had personally directed the 19 hijackers. In the video, he says, "We had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Atta, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes, before Bush and his administration notice." Another video obtained by Al Jazeera in September 2006 shows Osama bin Laden with Ramzi Binalshibh, as well as two hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Wail al-Shehri, as they make preparations for the attacks.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

In a 2002 interview with Al Jazeera journalist Yosri Fouda, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admitted his involvement, along with Ramzi Binalshibh, in the "Holy Tuesday operation." The 9/11 Commission Report determined that the animosity towards the United States felt by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the "principal architect" of the 9/11 attacks, stemmed "not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel." Mohamed Atta shared this same motivation. Ralph Bodenstein, a former classmate of Atta described him as "most imbued actually about... U.S. protection of these Israeli politics in the region." Abdulaziz al-Omari, a hijacker aboard Flight 11 with Mohamed Atta, said in his video will, "My work is a message those who heard me and to all those who saw me at the same time it is a message to the infidels that you should leave the Arabian peninsula defeated and stop giving a hand of help to the coward Jews in Palestine."

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested on March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan and is currently being held at Guantanamo Bay. During US hearings in March 2007, which have been "widely criticized by lawyers and human rights groups as sham tribunals", Sheikh Mohammed again confessed his responsibility for the attacks, saying "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z."

Other al-Qaeda members

In "Substitution for Testimony of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed" from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, five people are identified as having been completely aware of the operation's details. They are: Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Abu Turab Al-Urduni and Mohammed Atef. To date, only peripheral figures have been tried or convicted in connection with the attacks. Bin Laden has not yet been formally indicted for the attacks.

On September 26, 2005, the Spanish high court directed by judge Baltasar Garzón sentenced Abu Dahdah to 27 years of imprisonment for conspiracy on the 9/11 attacks and as part of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda. At the same time, another 17 al-Qaeda members were sentenced to penalties of between six and eleven years. On February 16, 2006, the Spanish Supreme Court reduced the Abu Dahdah penalty to 12 years because it considered that his participation in the conspiracy was not proven.

Motive

Many of the eventual findings of the 9/11 Commission with respect to motives have been supported by other experts. Counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke explains in his book, Against All Enemies, that U.S. foreign policy decisions including "confronting Moscow in Afghanistan, inserting the U.S. military in the Persian Gulf," and "strengthening Israel as a base for a southern flank against the Soviets" contributed to al-Qaeda's motives. Others, such as Jason Burke, foreign correspondent for The Observer, focus on a more political aspect to the motive, stating that "bin Laden is an activist with a very clear sense of what he wants and how he hopes to achieve it. Those means may be far outside the norms of political activity but his agenda is a basically political one."

A variety of scholarship has also focused on bin Laden's overall strategy as a motive for the attacks. For instance, correspondent Peter Bergen argues that the attacks were part of a plan to cause the United States to increase its military and cultural presence in the Middle East, thereby forcing Muslims to confront the "evils" of a non-Muslim government and establish conservative Islamic governments in the region. Michael Scott Doran, correspondent for Foreign Affairs, further emphasizes the "mythic" use of the term "spectacular" in bin Laden's response to the attacks, explaining that he was attempting to provoke a visceral reaction in the Middle East and ensure that Muslim citizens would react as violently as possible to an increase in U.S. involvement in their region.

Aftermath

Immediate national response

See also: Airport security repercussions due to the September 11, 2001 attacks, Travel effects and Aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks

The 9/11 attacks had immediate and overwhelming effects upon the people of the United States. Many police officers and rescue workers elsewhere in the country took leaves of absence to travel to New York City to assist in the process of recovering bodies from the twisted remnants of the Twin Towers. Blood donations across the U.S. also saw a surge in the weeks after 9/11. For the first time in history, all nonemergency civilian aircraft in the United States and several other countries including Canada were immediately grounded, stranding tens of thousands of passengers across the world. Any international flights were closed to American airspace by the Federal Aviation Administration, causing flights to be redirected to other countries. Canada was one of the main recipients of diverted flights and launched Operation Yellow Ribbon to deal with the large numbers of grounded planes and stranded passengers.

War on Terrorism

The NATO council declared that the attacks on the United States were considered an attack on all NATO nations and, as such, satisfied Article 5 of the NATO charter. Upon returning to Australia having been on an official visit to the US at the time of the attacks, Prime Minister of Australia John Howard invoked Article IV of the ANZUS treaty. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the Bush administration declared a war on terrorism, with the stated goals of bringing Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to justice and preventing the emergence of other terrorist networks. These goals would be accomplished by means including economic and military sanctions against states perceived as harboring terrorists and increasing global surveillance and intelligence sharing. The second-biggest operation of the U.S. Global War on Terrorism outside of the United States, and the largest directly connected to terrorism, was the overthrow of the Taliban rule of Afghanistan by a U.S.-led coalition. The United States was not the only nation to increase its military readiness, with other notable examples being the Philippines and Indonesia, countries that have their own internal conflicts with Islamist terrorism. U.S. officials speculated on possible involvement by Saddam Hussein immediately afterwards. Although these suspicions were unfounded, the association contributed to public acceptance for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Domestic response

Following the attacks, President Bush's job approval rating soared to 86%. On September 20, 2001, the U.S. president spoke before the nation and a joint session of the United States Congress, regarding the events of that day, the intervening nine days of rescue and recovery efforts, and his intent in response to those events. In addition, the highly visible role played by New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani won him high praise nationally and in New York. Many relief funds were immediately set up to assist victims of the attacks, with the task of providing financial assistance to the survivors of the attacks and to the families of victims. By the deadline for victim's compensation, September 11 2003, 2,833 applications had been received from the families of those who were killed.

Contingency plans for the continuity of government and the evacuation of leaders were also implemented almost immediately after the attacks. Congress, however, was not told that the United States was under a continuity of government status until February 2002.

Within the United States, Congress passed and President Bush signed the Homeland Security Act of 2002, creating the Department of Homeland Security, representing the largest restructuring of the U.S. government in contemporary history. Congress also passed the USA PATRIOT Act, stating that it would help detect and prosecute terrorism and other crimes. Civil liberties groups have criticized the PATRIOT Act, saying that it allows law enforcement to invade the privacy of citizens and eliminates judicial oversight of law-enforcement and domestic intelligence gathering. The Bush Administration also invoked 9/11 as the reason to initiate a secret National Security Agency operation, "to eavesdrop on telephone and e-mail communications between the United States and people overseas without a warrant."

Hate crimes

Numerous incidents of harassment and hate crimes were reported against Middle Easterners and other "Middle Eastern-looking" people, particularly Sikhs, because Sikh males usually wear turbans, which are stereotypically associated with Muslims in the United States. There were reports of verbal abuse, attacks on mosques and other religious buildings (including the firebombing of a Hindu temple) and assaults on people, including one murder: Balbir Singh Sodhi was fatally shot on September 15, 2001. He, like others, was a Sikh who was mistaken for a Muslim.

Muslim American reaction

Top Muslim organizations in the United States were swift to condemn the attacks on 9/11 and called "upon Muslim Americans to come forward with their skills and resources to help alleviate the sufferings of the affected people and their families". Top organizations include: Islamic Society of North America, American Muslim Alliance, American Muslim Council, Council on American-Islamic Relations, The Islamic Circle of North America, and the Shari'a Scholars Association of North America. In addition to massive monetary donations, many Islamic organizations launched blood drives and provided medical assistance, food, and residence for victims.

Following the attacks, 80,000 Arab and Muslim immigrants were fingerprinted and registered under the Alien Registration Act of 1940. 8,000 Arab and Muslim men were interviewed, and 5,000 foreign nationals were detained under Joint Congressional Resolution 107-40 authorizing the use of military force "to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States."

International response

The attacks were denounced by mainstream media and governments worldwide. Across the globe, nations offered pro-American support and solidarity. Leaders in most Middle Eastern countries, including Afghanistan, condemned the attacks. Iraq was a notable exception, with an immediate official statement that "the American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity." Another publicized exception was the celebration of some Palestinians.

Tens of thousands of people attempted to flee Afghanistan following the attacks, fearing a response by the United States. Pakistan, already home to many Afghan refugees from previous Afghan conflict, closed its border with Afghanistan on September 17. Approximately one month after the attacks, the United States led a broad coalition of international forces in the removal of the Taliban regime for harboring the al-Qaeda organization. The Pakistani authorities moved decisively to align themselves with the United States in a war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Pakistan provided the United States a number of military airports and bases for its attack on the Taliban regime and arrested over 600 supposed al-Qaeda members, whom it handed over to the United States.

Numerous countries, including the United Kingdom, India, Australia, France, Germany, Indonesia, China, Canada, Russia, Pakistan, Jordan, Mauritius, Uganda and Zimbabwe introduced "anti-terrorism" legislation and froze the bank accounts of businesses and individuals they suspected of having al-Qaeda ties. Massive swings in opinion polls in Western countries favored incumbent leaders and governments. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies in a number of countries, including Italy, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines arrested people they labeled terrorist suspects for the stated purpose of breaking up militant cells around the world. In the U.S., this aroused some controversy, as critics such as the Bill of Rights Defense Committee argued that traditional restrictions on federal surveillance (e.g. COINTELPRO's monitoring of public meetings) were "dismantled" by the USA PATRIOT Act. Organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Liberty argued that certain civil rights protections were also being circumvented.

The United States set up a detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold what they termed "illegal enemy combatants". The legitimacy of these detentions has been questioned by, among others, the European Parliament, the Organization of American States, and Amnesty International.

The international events and reactions immediately after the attacks had an effect on the impact of the World Conference against Racism 2001, which had ended in discord and international recriminations just 3 days before

Conspiracy theories

Various conspiracy theories have emerged subsequent to the attacks suggesting that individuals inside the United States knew the attacks were coming and deliberately chose not to prevent them, or that individuals outside of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda planned, carried out, or assisted in the attacks. The community of civil engineers generally accepts the mainstream account that the impacts of jets at high speeds in combination with subsequent fires, rather than controlled demolition, led to the collapse of the Twin Towers.

Investigations

9/11 Commission

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission), chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, was formed in late 2002 to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the attacks, including preparedness for, and the immediate response to, the attacks. On July 22, 2004, the 9/11 Commission issued the 9/11 Commission Report. The commission and its report have been subject to various forms of criticism.

Collapse of the World Trade Center

A federal technical building and fire safety investigation of the collapses of the Twin Towers and 7 WTC has been conducted by the United States Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The goals of this investigation were to investigate why the buildings collapsed, the extent of injuries and fatalities, and the procedures involved in designing and managing the World Trade Center.

The report concluded that the fireproofing on the Twin Towers' steel infrastructures was blown off by the initial impact of the planes and that, if this had not occurred, the towers would likely have remained standing. This was confirmed by an independent study by Purdue University. Gene Corley, the director of the original investigation, commented that "the towers really did amazingly well. The terrorist aircraft didn’t bring the buildings down; it was the fire which followed. It was proven that you could take out two thirds of the columns in a tower and the building would still stand." The fires weakened the trusses supporting the floors, making the floors sag. The sagging floors pulled on the exterior steel columns to the point where exterior columns bowed inward. With the damage to the core columns, the buckling exterior columns could no longer support the buildings, causing them to collapse. In addition, the report asserts that the towers' stairwells were not adequately reinforced to provide emergency escape for people above the impact zones. NIST stated that the final report on the collapse of 7 WTC will appear in a separate report.

Internal review of the CIA

The Inspector General of the CIA conducted an internal review of the CIA's pre-9/11 performance, and was harshly critical of senior CIA officials for not doing everything possible to confront terrorism, including failing to stop two of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, as they entered the United States and failing to share information on the two men with the FBI.

In May 2007, senators from both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party drafted legislation that would openly present an internal CIA investigative report. One of the backers, Senator Ron Wyden stated "The American people have a right to know what the Central Intelligence Agency was doing in those critical months before 9/11.... I am going to bulldog this until the public gets it." The report investigates the responsibilities of individual CIA personnel before and after the 9/11 attacks. The report was completed in 2005, but its details have never been released to the public.

Long-term effects

Economic aftermath

The attacks had a significant economic impact on the United States and world markets. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Stock Exchange, and NASDAQ did not open on September 11 and remained closed until September 17. When the stock markets reopened, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (“DJIA”) stock market index fell 684 points, or 7.1%, to 8921, its biggest-ever one-day point decline. By the end of the week, the DJIA had fallen 1,369.7 points (14.3%), its largest one-week point drop in history. U.S. stocks lost $1.4 trillion in value for the week. This is equivalent to $2.41 trillion in present day terms. In New York City, there were approximately 430,000 lost job months and $2.8 billion in lost wages, which occurred in the three months following the 9/11 attacks. The economic effects were mainly focused on the city's export economy sectors. The GDP for New York City was estimated to have declined by $27.3 billion for the last three months of 2001 and all of 2002. The Federal government provided $11.2 billion in immediate assistance to the Government of New York City in September 2001, and $10.5 billion in early 2002 for economic development and infrastructure needs.

The 9/11 attacks also had great impact on small businesses in Lower Manhattan, located near the World Trade Center. Approximately 18,000 small businesses were destroyed or displaced after the attacks. The Small Business Administration provided loans as assistance, while Community Development Block Grants and Economic Injury Disaster Loans were other ways that the Federal Government provided assistance to small business effected by the 9/11 attacks. 31.9 million square feet of Lower Manhattan office space was either damaged or destroyed. Many questioned whether these lost jobs would ever be restored, and whether the damaged tax base could ever recover. Economic studies of the effects of 9/11 have confirmed that the impact of the attacks on the Manhattan office market as well as on office employment was more limited than initially expected because of the strong need for face-to-face interaction in the financial services industry.

North American air space was closed for several days after the attacks and air travel decreased significantly upon its reopening. The attacks led to nearly a 20% cutback in air travel capacity, and severely exacerbated financial problems in the struggling U.S. airline industry.

Health effects

The thousands of tons of toxic debris resulting from the collapse of the Twin Towers consisted of more than 2,500 contaminants, including known carcinogens. This has led to debilitating illnesses among rescue and recovery workers, which many claim to be directly linked to debris exposure. For example, NYPD Officer Frank Macri died of lung cancer that spread throughout his body on September 3, 2007; his family contends the cancer is the result of long hours on the site and they have filed for line-of-duty death benefits, which the city has yet to rule on. Health effects have also extended to some residents, students, and office workers of Lower Manhattan and nearby Chinatown. Several deaths have been linked to the toxic dust caused by the World Trade Center's collapse and the victims' names will be included in the World Trade Center memorial. There is also scientific speculation that exposure to various toxic products in the air may have negative effects on fetal development. Due to this potential hazard, a notable children's environmental health center is currently analyzing the children whose mothers were pregnant during the WTC collapse, and were living or working near the World Trade Center towers.

Legal disputes over the attendant costs of illnesses related to the attacks are still in the court system. On October 17, 2006, federal judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected New York City's refusal to pay for health costs for rescue workers, allowing for the possibility of numerous suits against the city. Government officials have been faulted for urging the public to return to lower Manhattan in the weeks shortly following the attacks. Christine Todd Whitman, administrator of the EPA in the aftermath of the attacks, was heavily criticized for incorrectly saying that the area was environmentally safe. President Bush was criticized for interfering with EPA interpretations and pronouncements regarding air quality in the aftermath of the attacks. In addition, Mayor Giuliani was criticized for urging financial industry personnel to return quickly to the greater Wall Street area.

Rebuilding

On the day of the attacks, Giuliani proclaimed, "We will rebuild. We're going to come out of this stronger than before, politically stronger, economically stronger. The skyline will be made whole again." Debris removal officially ended in May 2002. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, responsible for rebuilding the World Trade Center site, has been criticized for doing little with the enormous funding directed to the rebuilding efforts. On the sites of the totally destroyed buildings, one, 7 World Trade Center, has a new office tower which was completed in 2006. The Freedom Tower is currently under construction at the site and at 1,776 ft (541 m) upon completion in 2011, will become the one of the tallest buildings in North America, behind the Chicago Spire and the CN Tower in Toronto. Three more towers are expected to be built between 2007 and 2012 on the site, and will be located one block east of where the original towers stood. The damaged section of the Pentagon was rebuilt and occupied within a year of the attacks.

Memorials

In the days immediately following the attacks, many memorials and vigils were held around the world. In addition, pictures were placed all over Ground Zero. A witness described being unable to "get away from faces of innocent victims who were killed. Their pictures are everywhere, on phone booths, street lights, walls of subway stations. Everything reminded me of a huge funeral, people quiet and sad, but also very nice. Before, New York gave me a cold feeling; now people were reaching out to help each other.”

One of the first memorials was the Tribute in Light, an installation of 88 searchlights at the footprints of the World Trade Center towers which projected two vertical columns of light into the sky. In New York, the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was held to design an appropriate memorial on the site. The winning design, Reflecting Absence, was selected in August 2006, and consists of a pair of reflecting pools in the footprints of the towers, surrounded by a list of the victims' names in an underground memorial space. Plans for a museum on the site have been put on hold, following the abandonment of the International Freedom Center after criticism from the families of many victims.

At the Pentagon, an outdoor memorial is currently under construction, which will consist of a landscaped park with 184 benches facing the Pentagon. When the Pentagon was rebuilt in 2001–2002, a private chapel and indoor memorial were included, located at the spot where Flight 77 crashed into the building. At Shanksville, a permanent Flight 93 National Memorial is in planning stages, which will include a sculpted grove of trees forming a circle around the crash site, bisected by the plane's path, while wind chimes will bear the names of the victims. A temporary memorial is located 500 yards (457 m) from the Flight 93 crash site near Shanksville. Many other permanent memorials are being constructed around the world and a list is being updated as new ones are completed. In addition to physical monuments, scholarships and charities have been established by the victims' loved ones, along with many other organizations and private figures.

See also

References

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External links

• 9-11Commission.gov - 'National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States' (Official Website – archived)
• 911DigitalArchive.org - 'September 11 Digital Archive: Saving the Histories of September 11, 2001' (in partnership with the Library of Congress)
• BBC News - 'America's Day of Terror'
• Memory.loc.gov - 'September 11, 2001, Documentary Project', The Library of Congress
• TheMemoryHole.org - New York Fire Department audio tapes from September 11 2001.
• WCBS-TV - September 11 Remembered
• NY1.com - New York One News Television, 'World Trade Center Special Section' (June 7, 2005)
• September 11 attacks in the Newseum archive of front page images from 2001-09-12.
• September 11, 2001 Newspaper Articles Archive - More than 15,000 free newspaper articles related to the 9/11/2001 attacks.
• September 11, 2001 Screenshot Archive - Database of 230 screenshots from news sites around the world.
• Washington Post - 'Terrorists Unleash Assault on US'
• Open Directory - September 11, 2001

Multimedia

• CNN.com - Video archive, including the first and second planes.
• Inside 9/11 - National Geographic
• Time.com - 'Shattered: a remarkable collection of photographs', James Nachtwey
• Memories of the attack (see flashbulb memory)
• Slate's The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón

Memorials

• CNN September 11 Memorial - List of victims, and photos.
• In Memoriam: September 11, 2001 - A read-only wiki

Template:Link FA Template:Link FA

• September 11, 2001 attacks
• Building fires in the United States
• Islamic terrorism
• Terrorism in the United States
• Al-Qaeda activities
• Filmed deaths