The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks (27 page)

On March 31, 2001, Yemeni police announced the arrests of several more suspects believed to be Islamic militants. The main suspect apparently fled to Afghanistan. Ali Mohammed Omar Kurdi was arrested; his house had been searched the previous day.

Yemen arrested five suspects with ties to Islamic terrorist cells on April 14 and 15, 2001, bringing the total in custody to 28. Two jailed suspects had informed security officials about terrorist cells operating in the country. The cells had two or three members each and were directed by leaders of Yemen's Islamic Jihad (YIJ) who were based in several countries outside Yemen, including Afghanistan. The cells assisted non-Yemeni Arabs with ties to YIJ by providing forged Yemeni passports, safe houses, and information on Yemeni security.

A 100-minute videotape made by Al-Sahab Productions (The Clouds) circulated in Kuwait City by Muslim terrorists shows bin Laden for several minutes and suggests that his followers bombed the USS
Cole
. His followers training at the Farouq camp in Afghanistan included them singing “We thank God for granting us victory the day we destroyed
Cole
in the sea.”

On October 26, 2001, Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, 27, a Yemeni microbiology student and active member of al Qaeda, was handed over to U.S. authorities by Pakistani intelligence, according to Pakistani government sources. Pakistan bypassed the usual extradition and deportation procedures. He was the first suspect captured outside Yemen. He arrived in 1993 in Pakistan from Taiz, Yemen, to study microbiology at the University of Karachi. He was asked to leave in 1996 after failing to qualify for the honors program in which he had enrolled. Pakistani authorities arrested him later that year in connection with the November 1995 bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad, but he was released without being charged. He was brought to Karachi International Airport in a rented white Toyota sedan by masked members of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, and handed over to U.S. officials who put him on a Gulfstream V jet. Government authorities detained two other Yemeni university students with ties to Mohammed.

On January 29, 2011, Yemen announced it had tracked down Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal and Qaed Salim Sunian al-Harithi, wanted for questioning in the case.

After a $250 million repair, the USS
Cole
returned to service on April 14, 2002.

On November 3, 2002, a Hellfire missile hit a car in Yemen carrying a group of al Qaeda terrorists, killing all six of them, including Abu Ali al-Harithi, a
Cole
suspect. Around that time, authorities captured a suspected planner of the
Cole
attack, al Qaeda member Abd-al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was believed to have also planned the USS
The Sullivans
attack and the thwarted attack on U.S. and U.K. warships in the Strait of Gibraltar in 2002.

On April 11, 2003, 10 of the main suspects, including Jamal al-Badawi, escaped from an Aden prison.

On May 15, 2003, a federal grand jury indicted on 50 counts Jamal al-Badawi and Fahd Quso; they faced the death penalty. The indictment named as unindicted coconspirators Osama bin Laden; Saif al-Adel, head of al Qaeda's military committee; Muhsin Musa Matwalli; A bd-al-Rahim al-Nashiri; and Tawfiq bin Attash. On July 7, 2004, a Yemeni court charged Nashiri and five other Yemenis in the bombing. On September 29, 2004, a Yemeni judge sentenced Nashiri and Badawi to death.

On February 3, 2006, 23 al Qaeda convicts, including Badawi, broke out of a Sana'a prison. Yemeni forces recaptured him on July 1, 2006. Yemen freed him on October 25, 2007. He remained on the FBI's Most Wanted List.

On March 12, 2007, Tawfiq bin Attash told a U.S. military tribunal in Guantanamo that he organized the USS
Cole
attack and the 1998 U.S. African embassies bombings.

On July 25, 2007, a U.S. judge ordered Sudan to pay circa $8 million to the families of the 17 dead sailors. In mid-April 2010, another 61 grieved relatives sued Sudan for $282.5 million.

Fahd al Qoso reportedly died in an air strike in Pakistan in October 2010, although a photo of him surfaced afterward.

In April 2011, Nashiri was charged by U.S. military prosecutors with murder, terrorism, and other violations of the laws of war regarding the USS
Cole
attack and others.

As of late 2013, many of the accused were held in Guantanamo Bay military prison, awaiting trial.

Overview:
And then the world changed forever. Every American who lived through that day can tell you where they were when they heard the news. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people from more than 80 countries. American response to the attacks included a massive reorganization of the U.S. government, creation of the 180,000-person Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and a host of airline passenger screening measures. The U.S. military and a coalition of the willing soon flushed al Qaeda and the Taliban from the safety of Afghanistan. Suspicion of Iraqi involvement with al Qaeda led the Bush administration to invade Iraq in 2003 as part of the War on Terrorism.

Incidents:
On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four U.S. air liners and crashed them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC), the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.

American Airlines Flight 11.
A B-767 carrying 92 people, including 9 flight attendants and 2 pilots, and traveling from Boston's Logan International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport was hijacked shortly after its 7:59 a.m. takeoff by terrorists armed with box cutters and knives. The plane was diverted over New York and crashed into New York City's 110-story WTC North Tower at 8:45
A.M.
, killing all on board. A fireball engulfed the tower as millions watched on television, certain they were seeing a horrible accident. Dozens of people jumped out of WTC windows. The building collapsed at 10:29
A.M
., sending a 10-story cloud of smoke and ash throughout Manhattan. The fires burned for weeks.

The hijackers were identified as Mohamed Atta, Waleed M. Alshehri, Wail M. Alshehri, Satam M. A. al Suqami, and Abdulaziz Alomari. In February 2001, Atta inquired about crop dusters at Belle Glade State Municipal Airport in Belle Glade, Florida. (This piece of information, developed in September 2001, led the United States to ground all crop dusters in the country in hopes of stopping a possible chemical–biological attack.) The terrorists apparently had been told to blend in with U.S. society, not appearing to be too devout as Muslims and cut their beards to U.S.-style lengths.

United Airlines Flight 175.
A B-767 flying from Boston's Logan International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport with 65 people, including 7 flight attendants and 2 pilots, was hijacked shortly after its 7:58 a.m. takeoff by terrorists armed with box cutters and knives. The plane was diverted across New Jersey, pulled sharply right, and just missed crashing into two other airliners as it descended toward Manhattan. The hijacker maneuvered to avoid colliding with a Delta flight; a third U.S. Airways aircraft descended rapidly after being notified of an imminent collision. United Airlines flight 175 crashed into New York City's 110-story WTC South Tower at 9:05
A.M.
The second crash was captured on television, which was covering the North Tower fire, further horrifying millions. No one on board survived the crash. The building collapsed at 11:10 a.m., burying thousands, including hundreds of police officers and firefighters. At 5:00
P.M
., WTC Building No. 7, a 47story tower, was the third structure to collapse. The rest of the WTC complex buildings collapsed during the day, and numerous neighboring buildings were damaged. The dust clouds from the collapsed buildings raced down major New York avenues.

The hijackers were identified as Marwan al-Shehhi of the United Arab Emirates; Fayez Rashid Ahmed Hassan al Qadi Banihammad, a Saudi; Ahmed Alghamdi; Hamza Alghamdi; and Mohand Alshehri. The “muscle” for the attacks had Saudi ties.

Circa 20,000 people were inside the WTC towers at the time of the attacks. Photos of the missing could be found throughout the streets of New York, taped onto walls, mailboxes, and telephone poles. The media ran dozens of biographies of the victims.

American Airlines Flight 77.
A B-757 headed from Washington's Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles with 64 people, including 4 flight attendants and 2 pilots on board, was hijacked shortly after its 8:10
A.M
. departure. The hijackers, armed with box cutters and knives, forced the passengers and crew to the back of the plane. Barbara K. Olson, a former federal prosecutor and prominent television commentator who was married to Solicitor General Theodore Olson; a Senate staffer; three DC school children; three teachers on an educational field trip; and a University Park family of four headed to Australia were ordered to call relatives to say
they were about to die. The plane made a hairpin turn over Ohio and Kentucky and flew back to Washington, D.C., with its transponder turned off. It aimed full throttle at the White House but made a 270 degree turn at the last minute and crashed at 9:40
A.M
. into the Pentagon in northern Virginia. The plane hit the helicopter landing pad adjacent to the Pentagon, sliding into the west face of the Pentagon near Washington Boulevard. The plane cut a 35-foot wedge through the building's E, D, C, and B rings between corridors 4 and 5. A huge fireball erupted, as 30,000 pounds of jet fuel ignited. The federal government shut down within an hour; hundreds of local schools closed.

Officials determined that 189 people, including all of the plane's passengers and crew, died, and scores were wounded. Dozens of Pentagon employees were hospitalized. The Pentagon crash displaced 4,800 workers, destroying 4 million square feet of office space. Virginia's economy took a $1.8 billion economic loss and a sharp increase in unemployment, including the loss of 18,700 jobs from the temporary closing of Reagan National Airport.

The hijackers used the names Hani Hanjour, Majed Moqed, Nawaf Alhazmi, Salem M. S. Alhazmi, and Khalid al-Midhar. In January 2000, Nawaf Alhazmi and Midhar were videotaped meeting with operatives of the Osama bin Laden organization al Qaeda in Malaysia. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) put them on a watch list in August 2001, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and FBI were unable to find them.

United Airlines Flight 93.
A B-757–200 flying from Newark International Airport to San Francisco's International Airport with 45 people, including 5 flight attendants and 2 pilots, was hijacked sometime after its 8:01
A.M
. departure by terrorists armed with box cutters. At 9:31
A.M
., the pilot's microphone caught screaming as two men invaded the cockpit. A hijacker got on the microphone to tell the passengers, “Ladies and gentlemen, it's the captain. Please sit down. Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb aboard.” The hijackers subdued the pilots, then forced several passengers to phone their relatives to say they were about to die.

Passengers saw two people lying motionless on the floor near the cockpit, with their throats cut. Passenger Jeremy Glick, a national judo champ, told his wife during a cell phone call that the passengers would go down fighting. He said the terrorists, wearing red headbands, had ordered everyone to the rear of the plane. Business executive Thomas Burnett Jr. said during four cell phone calls that the terrorists had stabbed and seriously injured one of the passengers. He later called to say that the passenger or pilot had died and that “a group of us are going to do something.” Todd Beamer indicated to a GTE colleague that the passengers were about to fight the terrorists, ending his conversation with “Let's roll.” The plane made a hairpin turn over Cleveland and headed
for Washington; some pundits believe that the plane was aiming at the White House. The plane crashed in Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania, midway between Camp David and Pittsburgh and 14 miles south of Johnstown, at 10:06
A.M
., killing all on board. Air Force fighter pilots were ordered to down the plane if it neared Washington, believed to be its intended target.

The hijackers were identified as Ziad Samir Jarrah, Ahmed Alnami, Ahmed Ibrahim A. al-Haznawi, and Saeed Alghamdi.

Epilogue.
U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies began the country's most extensive investigation in history and quickly developed leads and detailed information about the hijackers and their supporters. Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization soon became the major suspect; bin Laden was linked to the previous bombing of the WTC on February 26, 1993. The hijackers were linked with those of several other hijackings that day. At least one hijacker on each plane received flight training in the United States, and several had received pilot's licenses; others studied martial arts so that they could subdue the passengers.

The United Nations listed 86 countries as having lost its citizens in the attacks.

The monetary costs of the series of attacks were staggering. The American commercial airline system was grounded—for the first time in U.S. history—for several days, and many major airlines lobbied Congress for immediate assistance to prevent bankruptcy of the industry. On September 29, 2001, New York City officials estimated that cleanup and repair of WTC Ground Zero would cost $40 billion and take at least one year. That figure rose to $105 billion in early October 2001. The stock market lost $1.3 trillion in paper assets during the first week it was open after being closed the week of the attacks. The casualties were greater than those tallied from all international terrorist attacks recorded during the previous decade.

The world responded with an outpouring of sympathy, holding candlelight vigils, leaving thousands of flowers in front of U.S. embassies, and sending donations. Paris
Le Monde
's editorial observed, “T oday, we are all Americans.”