People in the United States were horrified on what they saw on their television screens that Monday morning of September 11, 2001.
They watched in horror as two U.S. commercial airplanes crashed successively against the World Trade Centers in New York City, while another commercial airline slammed into the Pentagon building a few minutes later.
The fourth airplane, United Airlines Flight 9, crashed in the rural area of Pennsylvania when passengers reportedly wrestled control of the plane from the hijackers.
People were stunned to see the magnitude of destructions when the smoke finally settled on the streets of Manhattan, in the rubbles of Washington D.C., and at the outskirts of Shankville, Pennsylvania.
The attacks were the modified version of the Al Qaeda (AQ) network’s Project Bojinka conceptualized in Manila in 1995. AQ leader Ramzi Yousef and his two operatives, Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan Amin Shah, originally planned the hijacking and crashing of U.S bound commercial airlines on key infrastructures in the United States.
The Philippine authority accidentally caught Murad before the AQ members could launch their diabolical scheme while Shah and Yousef fled Manila but were later on apprehended outside the Philippines by another foreign government.
The U.S. Intelligence Community did not anticipate that the AQ network would push through with Project Bojinka despite the major setback the terrorist organization suffered in 1995.
Philippine National Police General Avelino Razon later on claimed that an intelligence report shared to their U.S. counterparts was treated unreliably, and had the report was given credibility, it could have averted the suicide attacks in United States.
The patience and persistence shown by the AQ network to consummate their threats even after six years of hiatus are serious manifestation of their hatred to United States and to the free world.
The younger generation who has faint idea about the campaigns of terror finally saw the horrible consequences of ideological extremism gone berserk.
The older generation who may still remember the intermittent campaigns of terror in Europe and in the Middle East in the past decades would agree that the terrorists’ attacks in World Trade Centers and Pentagon Building were unprecedented in the annals of terrorism.
Those who recall the campaigns of the Abu Nidal Organization, the Black September (extremist faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization), the Baader-Meinhoff Gang , and Venezuelan-born Illich Ramirez Sanchez (better known as “Carlos the Jackal”) in the 1970’s and 1980’s would surely concur that the AQ network suicide attacks were unparalleled and the most disastrous by far.
Although only 19 terrorists from the Al Qaida terror network carried out the tragic incidents, the consequences of their actions, however, had ringing impacts to the political, economic, and social environments of the United States.
The results of the terrorists’ suicide attacks had claimed the lives of around 2992 Americans and foreign expatriates working in the World Trade Centers.
In the political realm, there was an upsurge of verbal skirmishes between democrat and republican parties as well as the endless tirades spewed by both camps - each accusing the other as responsible for the terrorist attacks – have divided the nation.
The terrorist attacks also had serious repercussions to the U.S. economy when the Wall Street transactions slid down and lost around $1.2 trillion-worth of stock market value in a week-time.
Added to these issues was the backlash on Arab-looking people in United States, and according to federal government report, 60-hate crime incidents happened in Chicago alone in 2001.
Ten years after the major catastrophe of September 11th, the American nation now rejoices to hear that the diabolical leader of AQ - Osama Bin Laden - has finally brought to justice in the hinterland of Pakistan.
U.S. President Barack Obama announced to the world on a televised speech from the White House Sunday night that US military forces have killed Bin Laden after years of building up intelligence against the terrorist leader.
The Los Angeles Times reported that former U.S. President George W. Bush called the special military operations a momentous achievement.
Bush said, “This momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001. The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done.”
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