The September 11 Terrorist Attacks

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On September 11, 2001 an Islamic terrorist organization named al-Qaeda committed a devastating and scaring act of terrorism towards the United States. There was four different attacks that occurred which were carried out by four passenger airliners that were hijacked. Two of the attacks took place in New York City (World Trade Center’s North and South Towers), one was at the Pentagon in Arlington Country (Virginia), and the other occurred in a field in Shanksville (Pennsylvania), which was thought to have been intended for the Capitol or White House. These attacks were carried about a group name al-Qaeda which was led by Osama bin Laden, who was latter killed after being captured by the United States.
Osama bin Laden’s motivation for the attacks are seen in his declaration of a holy war against the US and a 1998 fatwa signed by bin Laden and others, which called for the killing of American. In bin Laden’s November 2002 “Letter to America,” he explicitly stated that al-Qaeda’s motives for their attacks include; support for the “attacks against Muslims” in Somalia, support of Russian “atrocities against Muslims” in Chechnya, Support of Indian “oppression against Muslims” in Kashmir, the presence of the U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, U.S. support of Israel, the sanctions against Iraq. After the attacks bin Laden and al-Zawahiri released additional video tapes and audio tapes, some of which repeated those reasons for the attacks. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is the man who came up with the attacks and first presented it to Osama bin Laden in 1996. In late 1998 bin Laden gave approval for Mohammed to go ahead and start organizing their plot. A series of meetings occurred in early 1999, involving Mohammed, bin Laden, and his deputy Mohammed ...

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...d were quickly able to identify all the attackers. Very shortly after the attack the FBI released the names and of the hijackers and described them and on the 27th released the actual photos of all the men. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested on March1, 2003, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, by Pakistani officials who were working with the CIA and was then transferred to Guantanamo Bay and was interrogated. He is still held there today being interrogated and imprisoned. The FBI never formally accused bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks (even though they knew he was behind it) but was instead put on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for the bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya. After nearly 10 years and the largest investigation in U.S. history bin Laden was killed by American Special Forces in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2, 2011.

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