9/11: The Attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon

Tim McNeese

Description

On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial aircraft and crashed two of them into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. After learning about the other attacks, passengers on the fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, fought back, and the plane was crashed into an empty field in western Pennsylvania about 20 minutes by air from Washington, D.C. The Twin Towers ultimately collapsed, due to the damage from the impacts and subsequent fires. Nearly 3,000 people were killed from 93 different countries. It was the worst attack on American soil since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. A detailed account of these events—plus the history that led up to them, and America's response—can be found in 9/11: The Attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. 

Sujets

• Histoire
• Nueva York
• Pentagon
• History of the United States
• Terrorism
• Attack
• United States
• Tragedy
• History
• American History
• World Trade Center
• New York

Informations

• Publié par: Infobase Publishing
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781646937431
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

9/11: The Attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon
Copyright © 2021 by Infobase
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ISBN 978-1-64693-743-1
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Contents Chapters Introduction: Retaliation An American Symbol Terror on the Horizon A Gathering Plot The Fateful Day America Recovers Support Materials Chronology Further Reading Bibliography About the Author Index
Chapters
Introduction: Retaliation
OPERATION: NEPTUNE SPEAR 1 MAY 2011 JALALABAD AFGHANISTAN
Under the shroud of night, a pair of stealth Black Hawk helicopters took to the sky from an Afghan airfield. No lights accompanied the choppers; secrecy was the all-important element. The two American aircraft carried 24 men, the members of Red Squadron of the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team Six. These highly-trained special ops personnel were on an important mission. However, each man carried only light arms. Their destination—a housing compound in a suburban neighborhood of Abbottabad, Pakistan—was not a heavily-defended military target.  Yet the man they were after was the most famous terrorist in the world—Osama bin Laden.

Osama bin Laden , leader of the Islamic terrorist organization al-Qaeda, was charged by the U.S. government as the chief suspect in terrorist attacks in New York in 1993, in Africa in 1998, and for the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. On May 1, 2011, he was killed during a joint U.S. military–CIA raid on his compound in Pakistan.
Source: Salah Malkawi. Getty Images.
Even before the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden had been on America's top terrorist list. Efforts to locate the mastermind of the terrorist attack that had become known as 9/11 had frustrated both intelligence and military operatives for nearly a decade. Leads had been constant, but nothing had pinpointed the location of bin Laden. At least not until 2010, when intelligence operatives were able to isolate the location of one man's cell phone.
For several years, a mysterious al Qaeda operative known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti had been on the CIA's radar, but the agency could not determine who he was. Though the name was a pseudonym—it translates as "the Father of Ahmed from Kuwait"—several captured al Qaeda detainees claimed to have heard of him, and more than one suggested he worked directly for bin Laden, referring to him as a "courier." Code-named "The Sheikh" by 2007, the CIA identified him as Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed. Still the agency could find no trace of him other than shadowy rumors until 2010 when CIA analysts finally picked up Ibrahim's cell phone signal and found him living in a walled housing compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Events soon accelerated.
As the CIA investigated, they discovered that several families lived in the compound belonging to Ibrahim, his brother, and a mysterious individual, a tall man, always dressed white Pashtun robes and a prayer cap, who took daily walks inside the compound. Agents named him "the Pacer." The third man's family never left the compound. With the interest of the CIA piqued, intelligence analysts began speculating whether "the Pacer" might, in fact, be bin Laden.
By March 2011, the team of analysts at the CIA that had been tracking bin Laden for years reached its verdict. Everything indicated that the mystery man in the compound was the 9/11 mastermind. The lead analyst—his name has been withheld, but he was referred to as "John"—met with CIA Chief Leon Panetta and President Obama and stated he was 95 percent certain the man in the compound was bin Laden.
For months, anticipating that bin Laden might have finally been located, the CIA had been planning an assault on the compound. Options were placed on the table, including a missile or precision bomb strike or a ground operation which would likely include special forces. As President Obama considered his choices, he landed on the ground operation, as a bomb strike would cause considerable collateral damage to the Abbottabad neighborhood. And such a strike might miss its specific, one-man target. 
On Thursday afternoon, April 28, the President met with his Cabinet, where he found a significant amount of support for the strike. The only major opponents were Vice President Joe Biden and then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Gates even switched his support by the following morning. When the meeting ended, Obama told those gathered: "You'll have my decision in the morning." 
Actually, however, he had already made up his mind.  He would authorize a team of Seals to attack the compound. With men on the ground, they could identify bin Laden accurately and take him, dead or alive. Also, if it really was bin Laden inside the compound, he might be in possession of important documents, computer files, and other information about al Qaeda. Despite an evening spent pacing the floor for three hours in the White House's second floor family living room, the President told his aides on Friday morning: "It's a go.  We're going to do the raid.  Prepare the directives." 1
The raid was scheduled for the following Sunday night. (Saturday, April 30, was scrapped, as fog was predicted to roll into Abbottabad that evening.) President Obama kept his normally scheduled golf appointment that Sunday afternoon so nothing would appear unusual, even as he cut his round from the usual 18 to 9. Staff and cabinet members arrived at the White House that afternoon at different times. The only exception to what appeared to be a normal Sunday at the President's house was the cancellation of visitor tours to the West Wing.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House, May 1, 2011. Seated, from left, are: Brigadier General Marshall B. "Brad" Webb, Assistant Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command; Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough; Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Standing, from left, are: Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; National Security Advisor Tom Donilon; Chief of Staff Bill Daley; Tony Binken, National Security Advisor to the Vice President; Audrey Tomason Director for Counterterrorism; John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism; and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Please note: a classified document seen in this photograph has been obscured.
Source: Pete Souza. The White House. May 1, 2011.
The President and his staff, seated in the White House Situation Room, watched the raid unfold on a video screen, with aerial footage provided by a lone RQ-170 Sentinel drone armed with a high-powered lens that circled high above Abbottabad. Soon, the choppers arrived, grainy images on the video screen, and, almost immediately, something went wrong. One of the choppers skiffed over the compound wall and hit the ground hard. 
One of the SEALS onboard would later write of the experience in a book titled No Easy Day : "Seconds before the impact, I felt the nose dip. I held my breath and waited for impact.  The helicopter shuddered as the nose dug into the soft ground like a lawn dart.  One minute, the ground was rushing up at me. The next minute, I was at a dead stop.  It happened so fast, I didn't even feel the impact." 2
Despite the accident, the members of SEAL Team Six immediately went about their mission.  Explosives were set, blasting open a compound door. Members of the household had awakened to the crash of the helicopter. Once inside, gunshots erupted as Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed fired on the SEALs. He was immediately killed by return fire. Methodically, the SEALs cleared the first floor rooms. A second door was blown open with a charge of C-4 explosives. Moving up the stairs, SEALs killed Khalid bin Laden, Osama's 23-year-old son. SEALs passed several women and children who represented no threat.  Several of the team blew open a third door leading to the third floor. Moving up the darkened stairs, three SEALs encountered their quarry, a tall, dark-skinned man, bearded, wearing a prayer cap and Pakistani clothing—bin Laden. With bullets flying, bin Laden fled into a bedroom where the SEALs found him lying on the floor, flanked by two women kneeling over him. He had sustained a fatal head wound, a large hole in his right forehead. Moving the women out of harm's way, two SEALs fired a pair of shots into the chest of the mastermind of the 9/11 attack.
Back in Washington, President Obama and his team waited anxiously. Once the SEALs entered the compound building, their actions were no longer visible to the circling drone. Soon, though, word came in: "Geronimo ID'd." (Geronimo was the code word for bin Laden.) The President wanted further verification. The word went to the SEALs: "Find out whether it's Geronimo EKIA [Enemy Killed In Action]."
In short order came the answer: "Roger, Geronimo EKIA."
President Obama could now express a sigh of relief: "Looks like we got him." 3
All that remained was for the members of SEAL Team Six to collect a trove of papers, bin Laden's computer, and flash drives. Osama's body was taken into the courtyard, where a Chinook helicopter had already arrived to whisk the team to safety. During the raid, four men and a woman inside the house had been killed, including Ibrahim, "the Sheikh," whose new cell phone had helped locate bin L