On the 11th of September, 2001, a group of terrorists hijacked two American airplanes and crashed them into New York City’s Twin Towers. 2,977 innocent civilians died as the buildings were set on fire, leaving residents of the top floors trapped . In less than two hours, 110 stories collapsed into vast clouds of dust and smoke. A third jet collided into a section of the Pentagon (the US military headquarters) and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. 20 years later, on September 11, 2021, we commemorate the thousands of victims of the 9/11 attacks. It is important that we ask ourselves who were the orchestrators of these attacks and with what intent did they carry out such atrocious acts of violence on innocent human beings?
Al-Qaeda was the extremist Islamist terrorist group behind the attacks. This network had planned them from Afghanistan, a country located in Southern Asia. Originally founded in 1988 by Osama Bin Laden, the network blamed the Americans and their allies for the continous and past conflicts in Islam, which had affected thousands of Muslims. The members of Al-Qaeda believed that an American alliance between Jews and Christians was conspiring to start a war against Islam and annihilate all Muslims.
In November of 2002, Osama Bin Laden’s “Letter to America” stated Al-Qaeda’s motives for the attacks. One of the motives he presented in this letter suggests that their attack was a justified form of retaliation in response to American attacks which had taken place in Somalia, Kashmir, and Lebanon, among other places. This terrorist group’s intentions have a final aim, which is to honour their one and only God: Allah. Osama Bin Laden stated the following as one of his reasons to oppose the USA and attack their people:
“You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day. It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern. Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down.”
In the U.S. this past September, people gathered in silence and sorrow in remembrance of the 9/11 victims. In the ceremony during the moment of silence, they rang a bell at the exact time each plane crashed into each of the different locations, followed by the reading of the names of each victim by their family members. In addition to the victims of the planes, many mourned the loss of New York firefighters who sacrificed their lives in an attempt to enter the towers to try and get people out. At the memorial, President of the United States Joe Biden and his First Lady Jill Biden, along with former presidents and honourable politicians, including George W. Bush who was president at the time of the attacks, paid tribute to those whose lives were lost.
American President Biden delivered a touching speech in which he emphasized how “unity is our greatest strength.” With this, he meant that cooperation will eventually guide us toward peace and prosperity. Endless hostility will inevitably lead to acts of warfare, and solely end with devastation and death.