Theuscameunder attackand thewhole worldchanged forever
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001
It was the attack that rocked the world and changed the course of history.
More than 3,000 people died in the US after 19 terrorists from the Islamic extremist group al Qaida hijacked four commercial planes, crashing them into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington DC.
The devastating suicide attack – masterminded by al Qaida’s founder Osama bin Laden – set the Trade Center’s Twin Towers ablaze and in terrifying scenes saw victims leaping from the burning buildings as New Yorkers on the ground looked on in horror.
Within two hours of being hit, the towers collapsed, taking their occupants with them and burying them under a mass of rubble. Plumes of thick toxic dust cloaked the city.
Over the following days, while the rubble still burned and dust clouds swirled thousands of first responders, construction workers and volunteers gathered at the site that became known as Ground Zero to search for survivors. The long road to cleaning up the debris under which bodies and body parts lay had begun.
The New York death toll stood at 2,750, its police and fire departments especially hard-hit: hundreds had rushed to the scene of the attacks, and more than 400 police officers and firefighters were killed.
At the Pentagon 184 people died and in Pennsylvania 40 lives were lost when one of the hijacked planes crashed after its heroic passengers attempted to retake the plane. In the years following the atrocity, more than 51,000 people have applied to a victim compensation fund for those with illnesses related to the attack.
Now known the world over as 9/11, it was the biggest terror attack on US soil and ultimately led to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq which saw millions of US troops deployed to fight in danger zones, along with British and other international forces.
Nineteen years on, the World Trade Center has been replaced by a complex which opened in 2014. The centrepiece is One World Trade Center. Dubbed the Freedom Tower, it is 104-storeys high.
At the heart of the site is the National 9/11 Memorial which opened on September 11, 2011. Its pair of 30ft waterfall memorials were designed by architect Michael Arad and are in the exact locations where the fallen towers once stood.
Titled Reflecting Absence, Arad has the waters descend toward the broken foundations of the fallen skyscrapers and to the 9/11 Memorial Museum below.
US forces had continued to hunt for bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man.
He was thought to be hiding either in Afghanistan or in the tribal regions of Pakistan near the Afghan border.
US intelligence eventually located him in Pakistan, living in a secure compound in Abbottabad, near Islamabad.
On May 2, 2011, as the work on the memorial to his victims was being completed, bin Laden’s compound was raided by a small US force and the al Qaida leader was killed. His body was taken out of Pakistan for DNA identification and given a sea burial.
Hours after its confirmation, bin Laden’s death was announced by President Obama in a televised address. Several days later, al Qaida released a statement confirming his death, and vowing revenge.