The September 11 attacks, often shortened to 9/11, were a series of suicide attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against civilian and government targets in the United States on September 11, 2001. The attackers hijacked four commercial planes and flew two into the World Trade Center in New York City and one into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, while the last plane (which was intended to hit the White House) crashed into a field in Pennsylvania due to a passenger revolt. The attacks caused a total of 2,996 deaths including the 19 hijackers. Following the attacks, the U.S. Congress severely limited civil liberties and launched an NSA campaign of mass surveillance through the PATRIOT Act. The U.S. military began invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan even though most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia,[1] and on May 2, 2011, Osama bin Laden (founder and General Emir of al-Qaeda) himself was discovered and killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Background
During Operation Cyclone, the USA funded Islamic extremists in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet Union and PDPA. These mujahideen groups later became al-Qaeda, which the USA backed against Yugoslavia and the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Aaron Good, Ben Howard, Peter Dale Scott (2021-09-11). "The Twenty Year Shadow of 9/11: U.S. Complicity in the Terror Spectacle and the Urgent Need to End It" CovertAction Magazine. Archived from the original on 2022-11-21. Retrieved 2022-12-24.