Al-Qaeda Launches Coordinated Attacks on U.S.

Context

Al-Qaeda emerged from the network of Arab fighters who had battled Soviet forces in Afghanistan during the 1980s. After the Soviet withdrawal, Osama bin Laden and his associates turned their attention to the United States, viewing its military presence in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 Gulf War and its support for Israel as intolerable occupations of Muslim lands. Bin Laden cited earlier U.S. withdrawals from Lebanon in 1983 and Somalia in 1993 as evidence that America would retreat when confronted with casualties.

What Happened

The operation was conceived by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and approved by bin Laden. Nineteen hijackers, most of them Saudi nationals, trained in al-Qaeda camps and entered the United States over the preceding years. On the morning of September 11 they boarded four flights departing from East Coast airports. American Airlines Flight 11 left Boston at 7:59 a.m. and struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. United Airlines Flight 175 departed Boston shortly afterward and hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. American Airlines Flight 77 took off from Dulles near Washington and crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. United Airlines Flight 93 left Newark later and, after passengers learned of the other attacks by phone and stormed the cockpit, went down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, around 10:03 a.m.

Aftermath

Both World Trade Center towers collapsed within two hours, killing nearly 2,750 people in New York. The Pentagon attack claimed 184 lives, and the Pennsylvania crash killed all 40 aboard. President George W. Bush, speaking from a secure location, addressed the nation that evening and declared a global war on terrorism. U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to dismantle al-Qaeda and remove the Taliban regime that had sheltered it.

Legacy

The attacks produced lasting shifts in U.S. national security. Congress created the Department of Homeland Security and passed the USA PATRIOT Act, expanding surveillance authorities. Aviation security was federalized and dramatically tightened. The long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed reshaped American foreign policy and strained alliances, while memorials at the three crash sites and annual commemorations continue to mark the day as a turning point in modern history.