In a series of suicide attacks on the morning of Sept. 11 the USA suffered the most devastating loss of life and property in peacetime since the attack on the Pearl Harbour naval base in 1941.
Double-click on any word and see its definition from Cambridge Dictionaries Online
Read the article and then do an activity
Four passenger airliners were hijacked and two of those aircraft were deliberately flown by the hijackers into the twin towers of the 110-storey World Trade Centre in the financial district of New York city, resulting in huge explosions which ultimately led to the complete collapse of the towers in less than two hours. A third hijacked passenger aircraft struck the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Department of Defence, just outside the capital, Washington DC, and a fourth hijacked aircraft, apparently heading for another target in the Washington area, crashed in Pennsylvania.
In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, in which initial estimates suggested some 6,500 people were killed in New York alone, US forces around the world were put on maximum alert and all US airspace and land borders were closed. Fighter aircraft were scrambled over the north-eastern area of the country with orders to shoot down airliners that did not respond to instructions to divert or land, and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) ceased trading. Senior government officials and members of Congress (the bicameral federal legislature) were rushed to underground bunkers and President George W. Bush, who was in Sarasota, Florida, at the time of the attacks, was prevented from returning to Washington DC by the secret service until early evening due to fears that the White House or Air Force One (the President's official aircraft) could be the target of a further attack.
Although no credible organisation had claimed responsibility for the attacks, their sophisticated nature led to immediate speculation that they had been perpetrated by individuals associated with al-Qaida ("The Base"), a network of fundamentalist Islamic militants financed by Osama bin Laden, a Saudi-born Islamic militant based in Afghanistan. The organisation was strongly suspected of having financed and organised previous terrorist attacks against US interests including, most notably, the bombing of two US embassies in east Africa in August 1998 [see pp. 42434-36], the suicide attack on the USS Cole in the Yemen in October 2000 [see p. 43826], and a previous bomb attack on the World Trade Centre in February 1993 [see pp. 42435; 39311]. Although the al-Qaida network was considered by intelligence experts to be the most likely culprit, the involvement of foreign intelligence services in the planning stages of the attack was not ruled out.
Following the attacks the US government, supported principally by the UK, committed itself to waging “a war against terrorism”. Accordingly, US and UK military forces were dispatched to Central Asia in preparation for retaliatory action against al-Qaida and, in the event that it was unwilling to surrender bin Laden to face US justice, against the government of Afghanistan. By the end of the month, military action appeared imminent.
08.48 Flight 11, a hijacked American Airlines Boeing 767 with 92 passengers and crew en route from Boston Logan International Airport to Los Angeles, strikes the north tower of the World Trade Centre.
09.03 Flight 175, a hijacked United Airlines Boeing 767 with 65 passengers and crew en route from Boston Logan International Airport to Los Angeles, hits the south tower of the World Trade Centre.
09.40 Flight 77, a hijacked American Airlines Boeing 757 with 64 passengers and crew en route from Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles, crashes into the west side of the Pentagon, killing an estimated 189 military and civilian personnel inside.
09.45 All government buildings in the capital evacuated; all US airports closed by the authorities; international flights cancelled or diverted to Canada and the Caribbean; the New York Stock Exchange closed; the National Guard deployed in Washington DC and New York city.
09.50 Caller using White House code words threatens that "Air Force One is next"; President Bush prevented from returning to the capital by the Secret Service due to the "credible threat".
09.59 The south tower of the World Trade Centre collapses killing many survivors of the initial attack and an estimated 420 members of the emergency services.
10.10 Flight 93, a hijacked United Airlines Boeing 757 with 45 passengers and crew en route from Newark International Airport to San Francisco crashes 130 km south-east of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania, reportedly after a struggle between hijackers and passengers.
10.29 The north tower of the World Trade Centre collapses.
17.20 World Trade Centre building number seven, a 47-storey building adjacent to the ruins of the twin towers, collapses.
19.00 Bush returns to Washington DC from Florida via US Air Force bases in Louisiana and Nebraska.
20.30 Bush delivers televised address to the nation from the White House.
Keesings Worldwide Online
| 
