The September 11 terrorist attack in America. World Trade Center

There was a lot of talk in the American media that the World Trade Center buildings in Manhattan, erected in 1970, brought enormous losses to the company that owns the Port Authority. Millions of dollars were wasted every year just because of the costs of electricity, water and heating. In the 1980s, materials used in the decoration and construction of buildings were found to be hazardous to health.

Repairs were required, for which it was necessary to spend at least 20 million dollars, but no one wanted to get involved in this matter. The authorities were even going to demolish the skyscrapers, but they canceled the decision, since carcinogenic asbestos dust could envelop the entire Manhattan.

This is where entrepreneur Larry Silverstein showed up and paid $3.2 billion for the problematic high-rise buildings. The deal was completed a month and a half before the terrorist attacks, but the new owner of the buildings made the last payment literally on the eve of the tragedy. He insured his acquisition for a considerable $3.6 billion, and prescribed insurance in a separate clause in case of a terrorist attack.

It is curious that after the events of September 11, Silverstein tried to extort an amount of 7.2 billion from the insurance company, assessing the incident as a double terrorist attack. In the end, they agreed on compensation of $4.6 billion.

Researchers later found out that in the basements of one of the World Trade Center buildings were stored gold bars of various trade and financial corporations worth at least $160 billion. According to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, only $230 million was recovered from the rubble. Where is the rest? Many have no doubt that Larry Silverstein had a hand in this.

As a result of the collapse of the No. 7 World Trade Center skyscraper, which was kept silent for a long time, over 500 tons of carcinogenic asbestos were released into the air, as well as lead, mercury and other highly toxic substances, which subsequently led to an increase in the incidence of cancer in people who lived or worked in the surrounding area. By the way, Silverstein also received insurance for this house.

The plane did not crash into this house. Then why did the building collapse? Silverstein once said in an interview: “I remember the fire department commander called me and said that he was not sure that he could contain the fire. I replied that we already had so many victims, so the most reasonable thing would be to demolish it. And we decided to demolish it. After which we all saw the building collapse.”

TBILISI, September 11 – Sputnik. The largest in human history terrorist attack was committed in the USA exactly fifteen years ago.

On September 11, 2001, in the United States, suicide bombers of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger planes, sending two of them to the symbol of business New York - the World Trade Center towers, and the other two - to the Pentagon and, presumably, to the White House or the Capitol. All aircraft except the last one reached their targets. The fourth hijacked plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

19 terrorists are also listed as killed in the attacks, 15 of them were citizens Saudi Arabia, two - United United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt and one from Lebanon.

Chronology

At 8:46 a.m. (hereinafter local time), an American Airlines Boeing 767 flying from Boston to Los Angeles crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC) on Manhattan Island in New York between the 93rd and 99th floors. There were 81 passengers (including five terrorists) and 11 crew members on board the plane.

At 9:03 a.m., a United Airlines Boeing 767 en route from Boston to Los Angeles crashed into South Tower World Trade Center between the 77th and 85th floors. There were 56 passengers and nine crew members on board the plane.

At 9:37 a.m., an American Airlines Boeing 757 flying from Washington to Los Angeles crashed into the Pentagon building. There were 58 passengers and six crew members on board the plane.

At 10:03 a.m., a United Airlines Boeing 757 flying from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco crashed into a field in southwestern Pennsylvania, near the city of Shanksville, 200 kilometers from Washington. There were 37 passengers and seven crew members on board the plane.

As a result of a severe fire, the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed at 9:59, and the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed at 10:28.

At 18:16, the 47-story building of the World Trade Center complex, located in close proximity to the World Trade Center towers, collapsed.

The exact amount of damage caused by the September 11 terrorist attacks is unknown. In September 2006, US President George W. Bush reported that the cost of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States was at a low estimate of $500 billion.

Investigation and search for those responsible

On November 27, 2002, the United States established an independent commission to investigate the September 11 terrorist attacks (9/11 Commission). On July 22, 2004, the commission released its final report on the investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy. One of the main conclusions of the 600-page document was the recognition that the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks took advantage of “deep administrative failures” in the work of the US government.

The only defendant in the United States in the case of the terrorist attacks is a French citizen of Moroccan origin, Zacarias Moussaoui. He was arrested in August 2001 after he graduated flight school in Oklahoma and trained on a Boeing 747 simulator in Minnesota. In April 2005, Moussaoui was found guilty of intending to carry out a terrorist attack, which was supposed to be the fifth in a series of tragic events of September 11, 2001. On the personal instructions of Osama bin Laden, he was supposed to hijack a plane and go to ram the White House in Washington - the terrorist himself stated this at trial. In May 2006, by a decision of the federal court in Alexandria (Virginia), where the trial took place, Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Six other suspects in the attacks were arrested in 2002 and 2003, spent several years in CIA prisons, and in 2006 were taken to a camp at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In February 2008, the US Department of Defense charged six prisoners with murder and war crimes as part of the investigation into the September 11 attacks.

Charges were brought against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who, according to the 9/11 Commission report, is a central figure in the preparation of the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001; Yemeni-born Ramzi Binalshib (another spelling Ramzi bin al-Shiba), who provided organizational support to terrorists and transferred money to them; Mohammed al-Qahtani, who, according to investigators, on September 11, 2001 was supposed to become another, the 20th hijacker of four American planes; as well as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi (other spelling Mustafa Ahmad Khausawi) and Walid bin Attash.

In May 2008, the Pentagon dropped charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani.

After President Barack Obama ordered the suspension of all military prosecutors at Guantanamo Bay in January 2009 and vowed to close the facility, the military was forced to drop the charges. However, this promise of the president remained unfulfilled.

Having received no support in Congress, the head of state in early March 2011 ordered the resumption of military trials against terrorism suspects held in the Guantanamo Bay prison.

In early April 2011, US Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed that the accused Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other defendants in the September 11 case would not appear before a US civilian court, but before a special military commission at the Guantanamo Bay base.

On May 31, 2011, US military prosecutors again charged five suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, with involvement in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.

On May 5, 2012, a military tribunal formally charged five suspects with involvement in organizing the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the United States. They are accused of conspiracy, attacking civilians, intentionally causing physical harm, murder, violating the laws of war, causing destruction, hijacking and terrorism.

All five defendants refused to answer whether they plead guilty.

In July 2014, a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay ruled that one of the five accused in the attack, Ramzi Binalshiba, should be tried separately because of a report from military doctors that he had a “serious mental illness.”

Hearings in the case of those accused of involvement in organizing the terrorist attack continue.

Iran's responsibility

In March 2016, New York District Judge George Daniels entered a default judgment requiring Iran to pay $7.5 billion to relatives and other representatives of those killed at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The judge determined that Iranian authorities must pay another three billion to insurers who covered property damage and other material losses. Earlier, Judge Daniels ruled that Tehran could not prove its non-involvement in providing assistance to the organizers of the terrorist attack, and therefore the Iranian authorities bear a share of responsibility for the damage caused during it.

Memorial and new World Trade Center

On September 11, 2011, the World Trade Center Memorial was opened on the site of the destroyed Twin Towers in New York. It consists of two square fountain pools located right at the bases of the former twin towers, along the inner walls of which streams of water cascade into square holes located at the bottom of each of the pools. The names of 2,983 terrorist victims (including six who died in the 1993 World Trade Center attack) are carved into bronze slabs that line the parapets of both fountains.

The site of the World Trade Center bombing in New York. Archive photo

In November 2014, the new World Trade Center complex opened. It is the fourth tallest skyscraper in the world - its height is 541 meters. Construction began in April 2006 on the corner of a 65,000-square-meter site where the twin towers of a destroyed shopping center previously stood.

Since 2002, September 11 has been celebrated in the United States as Patriot Day; since 2009, after the approval of Act 111-13 of the US General Law, this date is also referred to as the national Day of Service and Remembrance.

On September 11, 2001, three planes controlled by terrorists crashed into the skyscrapers of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York and the Pentagon building. The fourth crashed in Pennsylvania. The attacks killed those in the buildings and on the hijacked planes. In addition, the disaster claimed the lives of firefighters and police officers, thanks to whose efforts it was possible to save about 30 thousand people. On weekdays, over 55 thousand people worked at the World Trade Center; the daily number of visitors and tourists reached 150 thousand. On July 15, 2002, the search for the remains of victims of the terrorist attacks was officially completed.

On August 20, 2002, the first official list of those killed in New York as a result of the World Trade Center collapse was published. It includes 2,819 people from 80 countries, including three Russians. A total of 157 people were killed on the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center skyscrapers. 343 firefighters died. 1,102 people were identified by relatives or using DNA analysis. According to statistics, of the ten people who died in New York, eight were men; the average age of the victims was forty years. Mostly these were employees engaged in mental work: from developers software to bank employees and insurance company employees. Many were at the peak of their careers. About ten people were executives, founders or presidents of companies. At least 59 people served as vice presidents. Of the identified victims, fifteen were under twenty-one years of age, including three three-year-old children.

As a result of the terrorist attack in Washington, when a plane crashed into the Pentagon building, 184 people were killed: 120 employees and 64 passengers and crew members. 44 people died on a plane that was hijacked by terrorists but crashed in Pennsylvania before reaching Washington. The total number of deaths was more than three thousand people, about six thousand were injured. On September 12, 2001, US President George W. Bush made a televised address to the nation in connection with the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. He said he had ordered the use of the “full intelligence and law enforcement resources” of the United States to find and punish the perpetrators of the attacks. The head of the White House said that the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks carried out an “act of mass murder.” According to him, terrorists sought to create chaos in America, but they failed to do so.

On September 15, the US President, in his weekly radio address to the country, said that the US was planning a “comprehensive offensive” against terrorism. The US is planning a "broad and sustained campaign to defend our country and destroy the evil of terrorism." George W. Bush warned Americans that they would need patience because the coming “conflict will not be short,” as well as determination because “the conflict will not be easy.” Bush called the terrorists' actions "barbaric." He said that the United States will work together with other countries of the world, including Russia, India, and Pakistan, to punish the perpetrators and organizers of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

On September 11, 2001, one of the worst terrorist attacks in human history occurred in the United States. The victims of the September 11 terrorist attack were 2,977 people, another 24 people are still considered missing. According to the official version, the attack was carried out by al-Qaeda. 19 terrorists, divided into 4 groups, hijacked 4 scheduled airliners. One of them was aimed at the Pentagon building, the second fell in Pennsylvania, and the other two, as you know, crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center.

The official cause of the September 11 tragedy is still criticized both by journalists and numerous supporters of the “conspiracy theory”, and by witnesses of the terrorist attack. In particular, video footage of the collapse of the Twin Towers suggests that the buildings collapsed as a result of controlled demolition. Thus, supporters of the “conspiracy theory” claim that the September 11 terrorist attack was carried out by the US government. Disputes on this matter are still ongoing.

World Trade Center

According to Nils Harritt of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, Jeffrey Frerer of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Brigham Young University, and his colleague Stephen Jones, traces of “thermite” and “nanothermite”—explosives used to demolition of dilapidated buildings. However, this version of scientists has been severely criticized. Firstly, it does not have any scientific evidence, and secondly, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NITS) claims that a lot of “termite” is needed to demolish the World Trade Center, but later scientists stated that the support beams of the towers -twins were damaged by a “super termite”. Finally, thirdly, the beam samples that the scientists examined could have been cut with contaminated tools, for example, an acetylene torch, which left traces of “thermite.”

Even if the claim about the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center is false or incorrect, how then can the rate of destruction of the building be explained? The National Institute of Standards and Technology says the impact passenger plane and the subsequent explosion of its fuel caused the steel beams to weaken. Their version is based on the assumption that, as a result of the rapid combustion of fuel, the steel beams weakened, causing the upper slabs to collapse onto the lower ones, and due to the force of gravity, the collapse of the lower slabs followed. Proponents of the “conspiracy theory” responded by saying that neither before nor after the September 11 terrorist attack, not a single tower collapsed as a result of a fire. NITS countered by saying that no tower had ever been attacked by a passenger aircraft before. However, the official version does not explain why both towers of the World Trade Center collapsed with tremendous speed, and numerous witnesses to the tragedy said that they heard several explosions in the buildings before the collapse.

Thus, the reasons for the collapse of the World Trade Center during the September 11 terrorist attack still remain unknown and raise a lot of questions that neither the official version nor the assumptions of the “conspiracy theory” supporters can answer, since both of them have their own shortcomings and inconsistencies .

Plane crash in Pennsylvania

One of the planes hijacked by terrorists is known to have crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania near the village of Shanksville. Flight 93 was the only hijacked plane to fail to reach its target. According to the official version, the passengers on the plane rebelled, resulting in a struggle between them and the terrorists, which subsequently led to the crash of the plane.

According to another version, the plane was deliberately shot down by the US Air Force. This is stated, in particular, by theologian David Griffin and software engineer Jim Hoffman. According to them, some heavy parts of the plane, such as engines, were found several kilometers from the crash site, which indicates that the plane exploded in the air. However, this version was later refuted, stating that large pieces of aircraft, including engines, were in the immediate vicinity of the crash site. Nevertheless, local residents Indeed, the remains of the plane were found even at a distance of more than 8 kilometers from the crash site, but in in this case We are talking about lightweight materials, for example, scraps of insulation.

In addition, the version of the plane being blown up looks ridiculous. If Flight 93 had really been shot down by the US Air Force, it would have been only in order to prevent another terrorist attack, but against the backdrop of the assumption of a controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, such actions of the American government are at least illogical.

Pentagon

Another mystery of the September 11 terrorist attack is the attack on the Pentagon. According to the official version, a passenger plane crashed into the US Department of Defense building. However, some argue that there was no plane, and that the Pentagon itself was hit by a cruise missile launched by American intelligence agencies. As proof of their words, they cite the size of the hole in the wall of the building, which was too small to talk about an attack by an airplane.

The official version is supported by the wreckage of a Boeing found near the Pentagon: landing gear, nose cone and seats from the cockpit. In addition, the official version is supported by the testimony of witnesses who personally saw the plane before it struck the Pentagon. However, supporters alternative theory claim that all evidence was fabricated.

Motives

Whether it was al-Qaeda or the US government who carried out the 9/11 attacks, they each had their own motives and certain benefits.

Al-Qaeda, for example, called the September 11 attack a revenge for the aggressive US foreign policy towards Islamic countries.

Possible motives of the United States seem much more interesting and reasonable. After the events of September 11, for the first time in history, Article 5 of the NATO treaty was invoked, allowing military action in the event of an attack on one or more countries of the North Atlantic Alliance. For example, the terrorist attack became the beginning of the so-called “War on Terrorism,” which justified the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In addition, it was because of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 that the National Security Act and the Patriot Act were adopted, which significantly curtail the rights and freedoms of ordinary American citizens. In normal times, the US government would face civil protests when passing such laws, but the September 11 terrorist attacks created favorable public opinion regarding measures taken to protect against terrorist attacks. Thus, the adopted acts allowed law enforcement agencies to invade the privacy of citizens, and the US National Security Agency justified the launch of a secret operation to wiretap telephone conversations of ordinary Americans based on the events of 9/11. In fact, the US government used the September 11 terrorist attack to take control of the citizens of its own country.

There are other motives that explain the version of US involvement in the September 11 terrorist attack. Thus, in the documentary Zeitgeist, American director Peter Joseph argues that the declared “War on Terrorism” allowed the investment fund Carlyle Group to make a huge fortune from the supply of weapons. This was previously stated by the director of the film “Fahrenheit 9/11” Michael Moore, according to whom one of the largest investors in the company was the family of Osama bin Laden. An interesting fact: the elder and his son George W. Bush, as well as former US Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci and former US Secretary of State James Baker, previously worked for the Carlisle Group.

The debate about who was actually involved in the September 11 terrorist attack continues to this day. Proponents of the “conspiracy theory” blame the US government for everything, finding more and more evidence of this. In turn, the authorities try not to enter into controversy, preferring to refer to the official version of the events of those days. In the words of both, there are both rational explanations for what happened, and obvious inconsistencies, and sometimes downright delusional assumptions. In any case, whatever goals the true organizers of the September 11 terrorist attack pursued, they clearly did not cost the lives of those almost 3 thousand people who became victims of someone else’s hatred or ambitions.