This Friday marks twenty-five years since the September 11 attacks, when two planes struck the Twin Towers in New York in quick succession, followed by a third crashing into the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth hijacked aircraft, United Airlines Flight 93, came down in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against the terrorists on board.
In total, 2,977 people lost their lives on September 11, 2001. Every year, their memory is honoured at an official commemoration at Ground Zero in New York.
The images of that day remain seared into collective memory. Most people remember exactly where they were when they heard the news that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center.
Shortly after 9am local time, about fifteen minutes after the first impact, a second plane struck the South Tower. At that moment, it became clear this was no accident; America was under attack. Then-President George W. Bush tried to maintain composure in front of a Florida school class as an aide whispered news of the second plane into his ear.
The world had never witnessed a terror attack of this scale. The perpetrators had hijacked four planes in total. The Pentagon was the third target, while the US Capitol or the White House may have been the intended destination of Flight 93, which instead crashed in Pennsylvania due to the brave intervention of passengers.
For New Yorkers, especially those in and around the Twin Towers, including rescue workers, it was a scene of horror. By 10am, the South Tower had collapsed, soon followed by the North Tower. Nearly three 3.000 people died that day.
Suspicion quickly fell on the al-Qaeda terror network, already known for previous attacks, as the force behind 9/11. President Bush warned Americans of a new kind of enemy, one who hid in the shadows: Osama bin Laden. The Taliban offered bin Laden sanctuary in Afghanistan. On 7 October, only 26 days after the attacks, the United States and the United Kingdom launched military operations in Afghanistan.
The so-called War on Terror soon expanded. In 2003, the US-led invasion of Iraq opened another controversial and divisive chapter, the consequences of which are still debated today. It took until 2011, ten years after the attacks, for the main leader, Osama bin Laden, to be killed in Pakistan. Then-President Barack Obama announced the news live to the world.
Yet, the war in Afghanistan dragged on. What began as retaliation for 9/11 turned into a prolonged effort to rebuild Afghanistan along Western lines, a goal that proved elusive. The Taliban resisted, and the conflict continued without resolution. After 20 years of the War on Terror, which cost the lives of around 3,600 US and allied soldiers, the withdrawal of Western troops from Afghanistan in 2021 was marked by chaos and uncertainty.
This remains the central question to this day.
In the years following September 11, 2001, the United States transformed into a security state under the Patriot Act, curtailing personal freedoms and tightening immigration controls. Air travel became simultaneously safer and more complex due to stricter security standards. Islamophobia increased, and radical Islamist groups flourished in the Middle East, giving rise to new forms of modern terrorism. The list of consequences is long, and the world has been fundamentally altered.
The inferno of 9/11 changed the course of the globalised, free world, forever.
