22nd Anniversary Of September 11, 2001: The Day That Changed The World Forever

THIS Monday, September 11, marks the 22nd anniversary of the horrific terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre’s Twin Towers in New York.

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the militant Islamic extremist network Al-Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, conducted four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks against the United States.

A total of 19 terrorists operated in three groups of five members and one group of four. Each group included one designated flight-trained hijacker. They took control of four commercial airliners in mid-flight while they were travelling from the northeastern U.S. to California.

Their ultimate goal was to crash the planes into prominent American buildings, inflicting mass casualties and major structural damage in the process.

Two aircraft were flown into the Twin Towers

The first two planes were successfully flown into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower in Lower Manhattan at 8:46 am. Just 17 minutes later, at 9:03 am, United Airlines Flight 175 flew into the South Tower. Both of the 110-storey-high towers dramatically collapsed to the ground one hour and 42 minutes later.

At 9:37 am, another of the hijacked planes, American Airlines Flight 77 targeted the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, causing a partial collapse of the building’s side.

United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania

A fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was believed to have been targeting a federal government building in Washington, DC. This could have possibly been the U.S. Capitol or even the White House.

However, news of the other attacks had already filtered through to the passengers on board the aircraft and they decided to take matters into their own hands. The aircraft eventually crashed in a field in Stonycreek Township, outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

In all, a total of 2,977 people (not counting the 19 hijackers) lost their lives, most of them in New York. More than 25,000 others suffered injuries and substantial long-term health consequences.

Among the casualties were citizens of 77 different countries. New York City lost a total of 441 first responders.

An operation to hunt down Osama Bin Laden was launched

An operation to hunt down Osama Bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the terror attacks, was declared by America’s 43rd President, George W. Bush, and an invasion of Afghanistan was launched.

His father, George Bush, the 41st US president, declared at the time that his son: ‘faced the greatest challenge of any president since Abraham Lincoln’, according to the White House website.

After evading capture for almost a decade, BinLaden was located in a hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he was subsequently killed by the U.S. military on May 2, 2011.