2001-+September+11th+g4


 * __ September 11th - 2001 __**

Overview
The September 11th attack, also known as 9/11, were a series of coordinated suicide attacks by Al-Qaeda upon the U nited States on September 11, 2001. On that morning, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying nearby buildings and d amaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville in rural Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C. There were no survivors from any of the flights. 2,976 victims and the 19 hijackers died in the attacks.

Central Issue
Within hours of the attacks, the FBI was able to determine the names and in many cases the personal details of the suspected pilots and hijackers. Mohamed Atta's luggage, which did not make the connection from his Portland flight onto Flight 11, contained papers that revealed the identity of all 19 hijackers, and other important clues about their plans, motives, and backgrounds. On the day of the attacks, the National Security Agency intercepted communications that pointed to Osama bin Laden, as did German intelligence agencies. The idea for the September 11 plot came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who first p resented the idea to Osama bin Laden in 1996. At that point, Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were in a period of transition, having just relocated back to Afghanistan from Sudan. Many of the eventual findings of the 9/11 Commission regarding motives have been supported by other experts. Counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke explains in his 2004 book, Against All Enemies, that U.S. foreign policy decisions including "confronting Moscow in Afghanistan, inserting the U.S. military in the Persian Gulf", and "strengthening Israel as a base for a southern flank against the Soviets" contributed to Al-Qaeda's motives.

Conclusion
Many police officers and rescue workers elsewhere in the country took leaves of absence to travel to New York City to assist in the process of recovering bodies from the twisted remnants of the Twin Towers. Blood donations across the U.S. also saw a surge in the weeks after 9/11. Any international flights were closed to American airspace by the Federal Aviation Administration, causing about five hundred flights to be turned back or redirected to other countries. Canada received 226 of the diverted flights and launched Operation Yellow Ribbon to deal with the large numbers of grounded planes and stranded passengers. Operation Yellow Ribbon is the name of the operation that Transport Canada created to handle the diversion of civilian airline flights following the September 11 attacks in 2001. This event led to the United States attempt to capture Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. Bin Laden is yet to be found. Many people think that the World Trade Center attacks are linked to the War in Iraq, it isn't. Bin Laden and Hussein were not linked together what so ever and were never allies of any kind.