Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, the four airliners hijacked on the morning of 11 September 2001 and the fall of the twin towers, the closing of the American sky, twenty years of war in Afghanistan and the death of bin Laden, and the memorial pools in the towers’ footprints
Denise Gould · Public domain · Source
In 1988 Osama bin Laden founded the Islamist extremist group al-Qaeda among Arab volunteers fighting the Soviets. In 1996 it moved to Afghanistan and, under Taliban protection, made the United States its target.
On 11 September 2001 a Boston–Los Angeles airliner that left at 7:59 a.m. was hijacked and flown into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York at 8:46.
On 11 September 2001 an airliner that left Washington Dulles at 8:20 a.m. was hijacked, turned back near Ohio and flown into the Pentagon at 9:37.
On 11 September 2001 the US Federal Aviation Administration ordered every plane in the sky to land at the nearest airport. Some 200 transatlantic flights were diverted to Canada — 38 of them to the small Newfoundland town of Gander.
On 11 September 2001 the south tower of the World Trade Center, weakened by fire, collapsed at 9:59 a.m. and the north tower at 10:28. In New York 2,753 people were killed, among them 343 firefighters.
Al-Qaeda hijackers flew airliners into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon near Washington.
On 11 September 2001 an airliner that left Boston at 8:14 a.m. was hijacked and flown into the south tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03, live on television.
On 11 September 2001 passengers and crew fought back against the hijackers of an airliner that left Newark at 8:42 a.m.; it came down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03.
After the September 11 attacks the United States attacked and toppled the Taliban regime that had sheltered al-Qaeda in October 2001. The war lasted twenty years; when US forces left in 2021 the Taliban took the country again.
Early on 2 May 2011 US Navy SEALs flown in by helicopter from Afghanistan killed Osama bin Laden in his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
On 11 September 2011, the tenth anniversary, two memorial pools opened in the footprints of the fallen towers, with the names of 2,983 people inscribed in bronze around them. In 2014 the new One World Trade Center opened beside them.
Saudi-born Islamist extremist who founded and led al-Qaeda from 1988 and ordered the September 11 attacks; killed by US forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in 2011
Cornish-born Vietnam War veteran and head of security at Morgan Stanley, who led some 2,700 employees out of the south tower and died after going back in for the last of them
Passenger on United Airlines Flight 93 who told a telephone operator what was happening aboard the hijacked plane, then said “Let’s roll” and joined others in rushing the cockpit
43rd President of the United States (2001–2009), who faced the September 11 attacks eight months into office, declared a “war on terror” and launched the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
44th President of the United States (2009–2017) and the first African American president, who approved the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden