September 11

9/11

ENGLISH REPORT BY PHILIPP MATSCHEKO

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SEPTEMBER 11th 2001

Terrorism
Introduction 2

History 2
Attacks on America 3

The World Trade Center

Description 4
Importance 5

The Pentagon

Description 6

The planes

Path of the planes 7
Flight 93 - Final hours 8

9/11

Tuesday, September 11 9
Remains of a day 11

The terrorists

Hijackers 12
Osama Bin Laden 13

America′s reaction

Adress to the nation 14
America goes to war 15

Sources 16

TERRORISM

Introduction

Terrorism is a special type of violence. It is a tactic used in peace, conflict, and war. The threat of terrorism is always present, and an attack is likely to occur when least expected. A terrorist attack may be the event that marks the transition from peace to conflict or war.
The definition of terrorism is "the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological."
Terrorists have incredible many ways of trying to reach their goals, it may be a hijacked plane, an explosive boat or someone carrying a bomb around the body.

History

The word terrorism was first used in 1795, born with the Reign of Terror, the use of the guillotine by the French revolutionaries to consolidate their regime by killing their enemies and intimidating the potential opposition.
Later on, during World War 2, supported by the British, members of the resistance were not seen as terrorists but as freedom fighters. Their work of sabotage and ambush-destroying bridges and railroads and assassinating German officials and their local collaborators-was a justifiable tactic of a war of national liberation.
After 1945 freedom fighters like the Viet Minh against French rule in Vietnam, used the wartime tactics of resistance to attack French with the classic weapons of terrorism, like raiding remote plantations to kill French overseers, random shootings and bombs in crowded cafes, all designed to destroy the morale of the French civilians.
Similar tactics were used against the British in Palestine by Israeli freedom fighters like the future prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir. The Irgun and Stern Gang blew up civilians in hotels, assassinated British troops, and ambushed British patrols, all in the name of the national liberation of Israel.
Learning from these examples, the National Liberation Front of Algeria fought French rule with a ruthless terror campaign, using Arab women dressed as fashionable young Frenchwomen, to place bombs in cafes, dancehalls, and cinemas. The French fought back, and in the battle of Algiers, they broke the terrorist networks in the Arab quarter, with ruthless interrogations and the widespread use of torture. The Battle of Algiers was a military victory, but a political defeat, horrifying public opinion in France and elsewhere. France suffered a political collapse that returned to power wartime hero Charles de Gaulle, who eventually launched negotiations that led to Algerian independence in 1962.
These were the lessons that inspired modern terrorism, a phenomenon that emerged from the twin roots of the Arab-Israeli Six Day War of 1967 and the worldwide student movements of 1968. The devastating Arab defeat and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip inspired the Palestine Liberation Organizationto adopt terrorist tactics. Other pro-Palestine groups imposed their demands by hijacking airliners and kidnapping Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic games in Munich.
Young militants in Europe, Japan, and the United States turned to similar tactics for different reasons. In Northern Ireland, a Protestant backlash against the campaigns of the Roman Catholic civil rights movement revived the Irish Republican Army. Ham-fisted attempts by the British Army to detain militants without trial triggered a thirty-year terrorist campaign. The British, despite ruthless bombings of civilians in London and elsewhere and repeated assassination attempts on British prime ministers, strove to maintain their civil liberties and the rule of law. Police and troops who had gone too far, or killed without cause, were put on trial. Miscarriages of justice were sometimes corrected, and outrages like the Bloody Sunday shootings by British soldiers in Londonderry in 1972 became the subject of public inquiries. By these means, and by working closely with the US and Irish government in Dublin, the British have been able to develop a peace process that brought much of the IRA back into the democratic and political arena.
From 1981 to 2000, there were a total of 9,179 international terrorist attacks (excluding intra-Palestinian violence), averaging at 459 attacks a year.

Attacks on America

The Septmber 11 atacks have not been the first ones in America, but the most cruel ones.
On Febraury 26 1993, a bomb planted in a car parked at the World Trade Center exploded and killed 6, leaving 1000 injured. Islamic radicals who deliberately attempted to topple one of the twin towers onto the other were responsible for the bombing

Two years later, on April 19 1995, another car bomb left outside a federal building in Oklahoma killed 168 and injured 600. Although Islamic radicals were blamed first, Timothy McVeigh, 33, a member of an anarchist group hostile to the federal government, was convicted of the attack in 1997 and executed in June 2001. The Oklahoma bombing was one of the most devastating in the US before September 11.

During the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996 a bomb went off in a park, killing two people and wounding 110. It is not yet cleared who put the bomb there.

Another cruel attack on but not in America happened August 1998 when simultaneous bombings on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania killed 263 people and left over 5000 injured. Osama bin Laden is suspected of being responsibe for the bombings.

The most recent attack before the World Trade Center incident was a bomb blast on the destroyer USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden where a bomb-loaded boat crashed into the side of the ship killing 17 sailors. For this bombing bin Laden was made responsible too.

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

Description

The World Trade Center was more than its signature twin towers: it was a complex of seven buildings on 16-acres, constructed and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The Center consisted of the two 110-story office towers (One and Two World Trade Center), a 47-story office building (Seven World Trade Center), two nine-story office buildings (Four and Five World Trade Center), an eight-story U.S. Customhouse (Six World Trade Center), and the 22-story New York Marriott World Trade Center Hotel (Three World Trade Center).
The World Trade Center Mall, located immediately below the plaza, hosted a wide range of shops and restaurants. Below the towers 3 Subway stations made it easy to reach the complex.

The towers were 415 & 417 meters tall, from 1972 to 1974 they were the tallest building in the world, and on top of the north tower a 109 meter antenna was mounted, used by major broadcast agencies.
Each of the towers had 110 stories, holding a total office space of 400 000 m² and 99 elevators including express elevators for 55 persons which made it possible to get to the top in 58 seconds.
At least 70,000 people worked at the World Trade Center and another 70,000 visited each day.

Faced with the difficulties of building to unprecedented heights, the engineers employed an innovative structural model: a rigid "hollow tube" of closely spaced steel columns with floor trusses extending across to a central core. The columns, finished with a silver-colored aluminum alloy, were 45 centimeters wide and set only 55 centimeters apart, making the towers appear from afar to have no windows at all. The towers had 43,600 windows, and if melted to a 50 cm thick ribbon of glass it would run 105 km long.
Also unique to the engineering design were its core and elevator system. The twin towers were the first supertall buildings designed without any masonry. Worried that the intense air pressure created by the buildings′ high speed elevators might buckle conventional shafts, engineers designed a solution using a drywall system fixed to the reinforced steel core. For the elevators, to serve 110 stories with a traditional configuration would have required half the area of the lower stories to be used for shaftways. Otis Elevators developed an express and local system, whereby passengers would change elevators at "sky lobbies" on the 44th and 78th floors, halving the number of shaftways.
Construction of a world trade facility had been under consideration since the end of WWII. In the late 1950s the Port Authority took interest in the project and in 1962 fixed its site on the west side of Lower Manhattan on a superblock bounded by Vesey, Liberty, Church and West Streets. Construction started in 1966 and lasted until 1973 with a total cost of over $ 700 million.

The World Trade Center towers were, for their time, the best known examples of tube buildings. Tube buildings are strengthened by closely spaced columns and beams in the outer walls. The closely spaced columns and beams in each tower form a steel tube that, together with an internal core, withstand the tremendous wind loads that affect buildings this tall. The materials used in the constructions were glass and aluminium for the facade and steel for the columns and beams.
Aside from withstanding enormous wind loads up to 240 km/h, the World Trade Center towers were also constructed to withstand settlement loads. Because the towers were built on 2,5 hectars of landfill, the foundation of each tower had to extend more than 20 meters below ground level to rest on solid bedrock. Also, both towers were built to resist the impact of a Boing 707, which at the time of construction was the largest commercial airliner.

On the 107th floor of the north tower the ,,Windows of the World" restaurant was the highest in the world, the south tower featured two observation platforms which made it possible to see up to 70 km on a clear day.

Importance

The World Trade Center buildings were New York′s tallest and most famous office towers and the crown jewel of New York′s skyline.
After all, they were the tallest free-standing building in the world in one of the mightiest cities in the world′s most powerful nation.
For most Americans the Twin Towers were selected for destruction in part because they symbolized the American way of life. They represented optimism; they were manifestations of the potential of democracy, capitalism, and technology.
To others the Twin Towers represented arrogance, wealth and power.
People who hate capitalism are more likely to view the World Trade Center as a symbol of corporate greed and American arrogance, people who love capitalism are more likely to view the World Trade Center as a symbol of pride and achievement.

Many Americans have forgotten that the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists in 1993. At approximately 12 noon on February 26, a massive car-bomb explosion shook the building, causing millions of dollars in damage. Six people were killed, over 1,000 injured and a couple of school children were trapped for hours inside of a smoke-filled elevator. In 1995 Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and nine other radical Muslims, who deliberately attempted to topple one of the twin towers onto the other, were convicted of being responsible for the bombing. In 1998 the mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, was convicted of the bombing and sentenced to life plus 240 years in prison.

THE PENTAGON

Description

The Pentagon - US Department of Defense - is the nerve center of American military power. It ranks with more than 340,000 square meters of office surface and with 23.000 employees among the largest office buildings of the world. More than 200,000 telephone calls are led daily from the offices. The building has 16 parking lots for scarcely 9,000 cars, 131 stairs and 13 elevators. Despite its unusual form and its passages, which are 28 kilometers long altogether, the Pentagon applies as a house of the short ways. Owing to numerous transverse courses the footpath between two arbitrary points amounts to never more than seven minutes.
Libraries, business, one restaurant, two Cafeterias, six Snackbars and their own post office make the Ministry a "city in the city". The Pentagon was built 1941, briefly before the USA entered the World War. The construction crews had to ram 41,492 concrete pillars for the stabilization of the construction into the swampy underground, in addition came 680,000 tons sand and gravel. It nevertheless took only 16 months, and by January 15 1943 the Pentagon was officially opened. 83 million dollar the building had altogether cost.

The "brain" pentagon hides itself in the cellar: In the Room, deeply in the bomb-safe shelters, military specialists and strategists supervise military happening around the world. Here all wires and information gather: Satellite and clearing-up pictures, secret service reports, messages from the US Military-Bases in the inland and in overseas. From here military units receive their employment instructions.
The Pentagon of the characteristic sketch derives its name because of of the Greek name for the 5 corners it has. For most Americans the Pentagon is the symbol of the military superiority and deterrence and as guarantor of international security. For Americas enemies the Pentagon represents the epitome of the US imperialism.

THE PLANES

Path of the planes

FLIGHT 93 - Final hours

The events aboard United Airlines Flight 93 are perhaps the best known: United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark International Airport, New Jersey, nonstop to San Francisco, California departed at 8:41 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. Only 38 of the plane′s 182 seats were occupied, and the Boeing 757 was loaded with more than enough fuel to carry it across the continent. The perfect conditions for hijackers- not very many passengers, who might interfere with their plans, and lots of fuel.
United Airlines Flight 93 was airborne by 8:44 a.m. and headed west, flying apparently without incident until it reached Cleveland, Ohio, about 50 minutes later. Passengers reported that hijackers brandished cigarette lighters with hidden switchblades to take control of the jetliner once it was airborne. By 9:35 a.m, both towers of the World Trade Center were in flames and Flight 77 was bearing down on the Pentagon. At this time, air-traffic controllers at the Cleveland center were listening "over the frequency," the radio contact between cockpit and control center. They heard screams aboard the flight, then a gap of 40 seconds with no sound. Then more screams and a voice saying something like "bomb on board."
At 9:37 a.m., the plane turned south of Cleveland and headed back the way it came. Descriptions from people aboard Flight 93 indicate that there was pandemonium on the plane. Four men wearing red headbands and speaking with accents killed a passenger, rushed to the cockpit, injured both pilots, and took over flying the aircraft. The remaining passengers and crew were split into two groups, a few were held in the first-class compartment, but most were moved to the rear of the plane. One of the hijackers had a small red box tied to his waist with a belt saying it was a bomb. Apparatenly one of the terrorists in the cockpit said with broken english over the intercom "This is the captain speaking. Remain in your seat. There is a bomb on board. Stay quiet. We are meeting with their demands. We are returning to the airport."
From that time on passengers started calling their relatives over cell phones, one of them was Todd Beamer who talked to a phone operator in Cleveland, telling her about the situation on board. Other passengers heard about the incidents in New York and Washington, what was probably the reason for the passengers to revolt against the hijackers. At 9:58 Beamer then told the operator that he and the others had decided to ,,jump on" the hijacker wearing the bomb, he then dropped the phone, leaving the line open. In the background shouts and commotion were heard, and the last words heard of Todd Beamer were "Let′s roll!"
Although it′s not yet clear what the passengers were able to do, eyewitnesses near the crash site report the plane flying low, fast and erratically. At 10:06 the plane crashed in a remote strip mine area in Stoneycreek, Somerset County, near Shanksville about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh with all dead aboard.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

Ironically, the United Nations International Day of Peace

It was a perfect day, flawless skies and about 20°C when nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners - two of United Airlines, and two of American Airlines - with the intention of crashing them into prominent United States buildings. They were devastatingly successful.

It was a Boing 767 from Boston to Los Angeles with 81 passengers, that first got the attention of air traffic controllers. The plane took off at 7:59 a.m. and headed west before taking a sudden turn south and diving down toward the heart of New York City. Meanwhile American Flight 757 had left Dulles, Washington; United Flight 175 left Boston at 7:58, and United Flight 93 left Newark 40 minutes later, bound for San Francisco. All climbed into beautiful clear skies, all four planes on transcontinental flights, plump with fuel, ripe to explode.

The first plane hit the World Trade Center′s north tower at 8:45 between floors 94 and 98, ripping the building′s skin and setting its upper floors ablaze. People thought it was a sonic boom, or a construction accident, at worst, a horrible airline accident, a plane losing altitude, out of control, a pilot trying to ditch in the river and missing. But as debris started to rain - bits of plane, a tire, office furniture, glass, a hand, a leg, whole bodies, began falling all around - people in the streets all stopped and looked, and fell silent.
Just minutes later rescue teams approached the scene, and were stunned by what they saw: people running around burnt from head to toe, having compound fractures, arms and legs sticking out of the skin and totally in shock. And a burning skyscraper in front of them.
Inside of the building people were in panic, some running for their lives, others paralyzed by the noise. More and more started running down the stairs, but some stairways were filled with water from burst water pipes and sprinklers and blocked the way out. The smell of jet fuel suffused the building, hallways collapsed, flames shot through the building. By the time they reached the lobby, they just wanted to get out- but the streets didn′t look any safer. Everywhere was debris falling and smoke covering the air, and while bussinessmen were running out, firefighters were running in. From the lobby they could heard loud bangs coming from outside the whole time as if glass was broken, but in fact it were people from the upper floors jumping down from the tower because of the fires, and probably because they already knew that the tower is going to collapse. Whole stretches of streets were slick with blood, and up and down the avenues you could hear the screams of people plunging from the burning building.
The north tower stood for 102 minutes and crumpled to the ground in eight seconds. The impact of the collapse was equal to a 2.0 magnitude earthquake.

United Flight 175 left Boston at 7:58 a.m., headed to Los Angeles. When it passed the Massachusetts-Connecticut border, it made a 30-degree turn, and then an even sharper turn and swooped down on Manhatten, between the buildings, to hit the south tower at 9:06 in between the 65th and 75th floors. This plane seemed to hit lower and harder, maybe because by then every camera in New York was focused on the World Trade Center. Desks and chairs were sucked out the windows and rained down on the streets below. As fire and debris fell, cars blew up, the air smelled of smoke and concrete. Now both towers were burning and waiting to collapse upon all the people still inside. The city buckled, the traffic stopped, all tunnels and bridges were shut down at 9:35 as one skyscraper after the other was evacuated- The Empire State Building, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the United Nations. First the New York airports were closed, then Washington′s, and then the whole country was grounded for the first time in history.

Only 35 minutes after the south tower was hit, American Airlines flight 77 was going down on the Pentagon in Washington D.C. The plane was swooping in, its wings wobbly with the throttle completely floored. The plane rolled left and then rolled right, then it caught the edge of its wing on the ground just before it plunged into the west side of the Pentagon, where the Army brass were located, heavily damaging the building′s fourth, fifth and sixth corridors. In the plane, and in the building, 189 people were killed.

Meanwhile in New York, people were still running out of the burning towers, until at 10:05 the steel cores of the south tower gave in to the tremendous temperatures of more than 980°C and the steel holding the floors to the walls weakened, causing each floor to collapse onto the one below. The result was the building imploded upon itself, rather than falling over and knocking over countless other buildings in a literal domino-effect. A massive cloud of dust and debris formed and slowly drifted away from the building, not leaving anything behind but rubble. The south tower remained erect for 56 minutes before crumpling in 10 seconds.

Just one minute later, flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania leaving all passengers dead. Later reports indicate that passengers had learned about the World Trade Center and Pentagon crashes by talking to relatives over cell phones and at least three were planning on resisting the hijackers. One passenger told his wife that one person had already been stabbed to death by the hijackers. The resistance was probably responsible for the planes′ crash before it reached its intended target (probably the Capitol, according to the latest evidence). A black box recording supports this scenario, and it further suggests that the passengers succeeded in entering the cockpit. The jetliner most likely crashed while a struggle for the controls was underway or with a passenger at the controls.

23 minutes after the south tower collapsed, firefighters were still going in the north tower trying to get people out, not knowing that the floors above where the plane hit were resting on steel that was softening from the heat of burning jet fuel. All the steel turned into spaghetti and the floors, each weighting several tons, started bearing down onto the ones below, the weight becoming greater and greater and greater, and eventually it all came down, leaving the 110 storey tower looking like a bombed out cathedral. A huge plum of smoke was chasing people, rushing through the winding streets of lower Manhatten, who were knocked down by the immense force of the chalk cloud, some people were torn apart by debris hitting them. One firefighter ducked under his truck and emerged to find everyone else in his squad dead. Everything and everybody was coated with a thick layer of soot and dust, just like as if a vulcano had just gone off in downtown New York. The smoke made it so dark you could only see only a few meters, even with flashlights. People felt their way along the walls to get away, medical teams performed triage on the streetcorners, hospitals postponed surgeries and sent scores of doctors to the scene to treat the few who made it out alive. The area around the complex looked like a war scenery, taking it several months of removing all the rubble.

During the collapse of the Twin Towers, 2 830 people lost their lives including 2 270 occupants in the buildings, 157 passengers and crew on board the aircraft and 403 emergency response personnel on the ground. This was the bloodiest day in America since the Civil War.

Remains of a day

THE TERRORISTS

Hijackers

Flight 11 - North tower
Mohammed Atta, Satam Al Suquami, Waleed Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Abdulaziz Alomari

Mohammed Atta, 33 years old, is suspected as the pilot who hit the north tower and to have been the ringleader of the hijackers. He had lived in Germany and studied aviation, where authorities believe he formed a terrorist cell with some of the other suspected hijackers. According to German reports, he and two other hijackers reported their passports stolen in late 1999. Atta used his new passport to obtain a tourist visa for the US in May 2000. Together with some of the other suspects, he took flying lessons in Venice, Florida. The plane hit first carried the greatest number of pilots: 4 of the 5 hijackers could fly. Atta went out drinking the Saturday before the attacks in Florida with Waleed Alshehri who once lived three blocks from the CIA. His neighbours thought he was dealing drugs. Abdulaziz Alomari lived with his wife and four children in a stucco house in Florida. Wail Alshehri and Satam Al Suquami roomed together and shared a post-office box.

Flight 175 - South tower
Marwan Al-Shehhi, Fayez Ahmed, Ahmed Alghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi, Mohald Alshehri

Marwan Al-Shehhi, 23 years old, may have piloted United flight 175 into the south tower. Unlike his cousin Mohamed Atta, Marwan was remembered by his flightschool proprietor as a friendly, laughing person. Ahmed had a pilot′s liscence, having supposedly trained in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Alsheri attended the FlightSafety Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, but neither of the Alghamdis appears to have had flight training. According to the FAA, the hijacked flight nearly crashed into flight 11 as the two airplanes approached New York City.

Flight 77 - Pentagon
Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi, Hani Hanjour

Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhamzi were the only hijackers on the FBI′s terrorist-alert list. Al-Midhar spoke little English and was in the U.S. on a one-year visa. Alhamzi was attractive and polite, said a manager at his San Diego apartment complex. He had previously shared a New jersey apartment with his brother Salem Alhamzi. Hani Hanjour had a commercial pilot′s liscence with a Saudi Arabia address, but he lived in San Diego, California and Phoenix, Arizona for a decade. Majed Moqed remains a mystery.

Flight 93 - Shanksville, Pennsylvania
Ziad Jarrahi, Ahmed Alnami, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Saeed Alghamdi

Jarrahi, 26, earned a pilot′s liscence while living in a Hamburg, Germany, apartment house. Later, in Hollywood, Florida, neighbors remembered him as a professional who blended in despite driving a red Mitsubishi Eclispe, a modern sportscar. Alghamdi, 20, another pilot, listed his adress as the FlightSafety Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, but he also once shared an apartment in Delray Beach, Florida, with Alnami and another suspect, Hamza Alghamdi, who was aboard UA Flight 175, the second plane to crash into the north tower.
Investigators say they have established strong financial links between Mohammed Atta and Osama Bin Laden and that at least three of the hijackers were al-Qaeda operatives.They also say he was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the group led by Ayman al-Zawahri. Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) has been working since the late 1970s to achieve its primary goal - the overthrow of the Egyptian Government.

Osama Bin Laden

Osama Bin Laden is the chief suspect, accused of masterminding the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington. Even before the attacks he was America′s most wanted man, who commanded a large following among many young anti-American Muslims.
He was born in Saudi Arabia in 1956 to a wealthy Yemeni father and Syrian mother, although he was subsequently stripped of his Saudi citizenship. He founded the network al-Qaeda in 1979, originally as a guesthouse in Peshawar for Arab fighters wanting to join the Mujahideen in opposing the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Eventually their numbers became so large that he built new camps inside Afghanistan. The resistance movement was supported by the US, who sent weapons and money. One of the organisation′s principle aims was to drive US forces from Saudi Arabia, which included the Islamic holy places. It is believed that Al-Qaeda operates in more than 50 countries - in Europe and North America, as well as the Middle East and Asia, and it is known that Al-Qaeda regards US civilians as legitimate targets.
After being expelled from Saudi in 1991 for anti-government activities, he lived in Sudan for five years until he was expelled following US pressure. He went into exile in Afghanistan. Despite an extensive military operation in Afghanistan it is still not known where he is or even if he is still alive. Washington has said there is no question that he is responsible for the 11 September attacks. He has also been indicted for the 1998 US embassy bombings in East Africa and the attacks on the USS Cole in October 2000.
The Taliban were accused of harbouring and sponsoring Bin Laden and his associates, who in turn were supporting the Taliban regime before the military offensive swept them from power at the end of 2001. The Taliban - which literally means scholars - ruled most of the country of Afghanistan at the time of the attacks on 11 September. They captured Kabul, the capital, in September 1996 and governed Afghanistan according to a fundamentalist and highly conservative interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law. The Taliban′s early campaign against corruption and crime was welcomed by many Afghans who were tired of nearly 20 years of war, but 5 years later the Taliban regime was not more than a dictatorship for most of the Afghan people.
President Bush says his war on terrorism is not just directed against Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network, but is a broader war against all terrorist groups. No concrete evidence against Bin Laden has been released by the FBI, CIA or the White House, but the UK Government has released a document saying intelligence agencies learnt after 11 September that Bin Laden had indicated that he was about to launch a major attack on the United States.

AMERICA′S REACTION

Adress to the nation

On September 20, President George W. Bush adressed a Joint Session of Congress and the American people at the United States Capitol in Washington D.C.

Right at the beginning Bush talked about the immense patriotism of his country, ,,We have seen the unfurling of flags, the lighting of candles, the giving of blood, the saying of prayers -- in English, Hebrew, and Arabic.", not only by Americans but also by immigrants and other people who couldn′t believe what happened on September 11. Bush ensured that the ones responsible will be brought to justice, ,,Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done."
For the first time in U.S. history, America and ist people were attacked, ,,On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country.  Americans have known wars -- but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941. Americans have known the casualties of war -- but not at the center of a great city on a peaceful morning.  Americans have known surprise attacks -- but never before on thousands of civilians.  All of this was brought upon us in a single day -- and night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.". When talking about that one Sunday in 1941 he meant the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was a military attack, and not an attack on civilians, what hurt the personal feelings of each American citizen.
Bush claimed Al Qaeda as the responsible terrorist group, saying that ,,Al Qaeda is to terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its goal is remaking the world -- and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere."
,,The United States respects the people of Afghanistan -- after all, we are currently its largest source of humanitarian aid -- but we condemn the Taliban regime." The Taliban was the government of Afghanistan, but not Afghanistan and its people. So not Afghanistan was blamed, but the Taliban, who were told to surrender: ,,the 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. These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion."

Everybody in America knew that the terrorists were Muslim, and not that all Muslims are terrorists, that was why the President pointed out that ,,The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends.  Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them." This meant that America is not only going to fight Al Qaeda, but every country and government that supports them.
,,Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there.  It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."

After this speech it was clear that America is going to go to war, what was mostly favored by the American population who wanted revenge for what happened on September 11.

America goes to war

Nobody knew how to fight a global war against terrorists and those who harbor them - nobody has ever fought such a war before.
The last army to march successfully through Afghanistan was lead by Alexander the Great. In 1842, when a British expeditionary force of 17,000 was forced to retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad, just one man - an army doctor survived. The Soviet Union′s mighty Red Army invaded Afghanistan with tanks and helicopter gunships in 1979; 10 years later, cold and defeated, its troops left the place hoping never to see it again.
But if an invasion is ruled out, substantial military force is not. America trusts in its Airforce, meaning that they would paralyze a big chunk of Afghanistan with air strikes. Of course a lot of things can be done with jets and missiles, but for finding a special person on the ground you need soldiers on the ground to do that. And that′s what they did:
On October 7, the war on terrorism started, attacking military installations and Osama bin Laden′s training camps inside Afghanistan, fighting back after the worst terrorist attacks on American soil. U.S. forces struck at the heart of the Taliban movement, hitting the military headquarters and home of the militia′s supreme leader in the southern city of Kandahar. Power went off throughout the city almost immediately after the first of five thunderous blasts.
The first wave struck the Kandahar airport, destroying radar facilities and the control tower. The strike also targeted hundreds of housing units built for members of Osama bin Laden′s Al-Qaida terror movement.
The second wave, which appeared to be more precisely targeted, struck the Taliban national headquarters in downtown Kandahar and smoke was seen billowing from the high-walled compound of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Most people thought that the war in Afghanistan wouldn′t be much different from the war in Iraq in 1991, others thought it would be more like a war in Vietnam. But in fact, the war in Afghanistan was a war like never before.
The 45,000 Taliban troops were composed mostly of irregular, ill-equipped fighters that included 8,000 Pakistani and Arab volunteers. They all have been trained in Osama bin laden′s terrorist camps and were fearded for their zeal, especially being experts at organizing hit-and-run attacks.
They prefered pickup trucks and light weapons such as AK-47 rifles and U.S.-made Stinger antiaircraft missiles. The Taleban also had tanks, armored personnel carriers and reconnaissance vehicles left from the Soviet war.
On the other side a 44,000- strong band of highly trained, mobile forces able to sweep in and out anywhere, anytime, opposed the Taliban fighters. Army Rangers, Green Berets, Delta force and other forces like the Northern Alliance were part of the opposition, fighting with the most advanced weapons available.
The Afghan Northern Alliance was made up of an ethnically and religiously disparate group of 15,000 rebel movements united only in their desire to topple the ruling Taliban and supporting the American attacks.

Victory in this war will require steadfast hearts and stomachs. Patience remains America′s most potent weapon in its fight against reckless foes unafraid of their own obliteration.

By now, the Taliban regime has been removed, but not the scars it left behind on the country and on its people. America is still fighting terrorism, trying to kill one terrorist after the other, but unfortunately terrorism is not like a person that dies when it is old or weak, terrorism is ever present and an attack is most likely to occur when least expected.

Sources

TIME Magazine

TIME 9/11 - Special Issue, September 15, 2001
TIME September 24, 2001
TIME October 29, 2001
TIME September 11, 2002

Internet

http://www.wtc-terrorattack.com/en/pentagon_en.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/chronology.attack/index.html

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11%2C_2001_Terrorist_Attack/Timeline

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010920-8.html

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020909/index.html

http://www.nixlog.com/infographics/september11.htm

http://www.geobop.com/Symbols/911/1/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/world/02/september_11/
investigating_al_qaeda/html/people/bin_laden.stm

http://www.wytv.com/unclassified/34331.html

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/092701hjpic.htm

http://www.structurae.de/en/structures/data/str02118.php

http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/World_Trade_Center.html

http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20011028flt93mainstoryp7.asp

http://www.simplytaty.com/broadenpages/terrorism.htm

http://www.terrorism.com/terrorism/basics.shtml