(New York, N.Y.) — On the morning of September 11, 2001, America suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history when al-Qaeda terrorists launched coordinated suicide attacks against a range of targets on U.S. soil. Having smuggled knives and box-cutters through airport security, 19 terrorists quickly commandeered four passenger jets departing Boston, Newark, N.J., and Washington, D.C. One hour after deliberately crashing two planes into both towers of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, which later collapsed, a third was directed into the west side of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense. Passengers on board the fourth plane, United Flight 93, fought to subdue the terrorists after learning of the earlier hijackings, resulting in the plane crashing into an empty field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. All told, some 2,977 people were killed on that day.
The Counter Extremism Project honors the lives of all those killed, including the many who gave their own lives to save others.
CEP CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform
More than 20 years after that tragic day—America’s worst—the myriad terrorist groups who despise us continue to look to September 11 as a source of inspiration. While we mourn and honor the innocents, they celebrate their deaths. As we remember the bravery of those who fought against their evil, al-Qaeda and its regional offshoots release propaganda videos calling for still more destruction against the United States and its friends and allies. And it is not just words: we learn from the U.N. that al-Qaeda is rapidly expanding in Africa and running training camps in a dozen provinces in Afghanistan—“a permissive haven under the Taliban.” Closer to home, the recent favorable revisionism on social media of Osama bin Laden’s legacy—the prime orchestrator of 9/11 eliminated by U.S. Navy SEALs in 2011—is another stark reminder of the perennial influence that terrorist propaganda can have. We must remain ever vigilant in the face of both unreconstructed animus abroad as well as its pernicious effects at home.
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