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Who really blew up the Twin Towers in New York? The terrorist attack in America on September 11.

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With this, Gazeta.Ru completes the online broadcast of the tragic events of September 11, 2001. Take care of yourself and your loved ones, see you again!

Since 2002, September 11 in the United States has been marked on American calendars as Patriot Day. Since 2009, this date has also been named the national Day of Service and Remembrance.

Jason Cohn/Reuters

In 2011, the World War II Memorial appeared on the site of destroyed buildings in New York. shopping center: It is presented in the form of two square fountain pools located right at the bases of the former twin towers. The names of the victims of the terrorist attacks are carved on bronze slabs lying at the base of the structures' parapets.

On the eve of the 15th anniversary of the attacks, the Washington Sociological Center conducted a survey that found that over 90% of respondents clearly remember where they were and what they were doing when they received the news of the attack on the World Trade Center.

In addition, nearly half of Americans do not feel safe and believe that the ability of terrorists to carry out another major attack on US soil is increasing every year.

Tenet also tried to convince the public that thanks to its actions, “major attacks planned by al-Qaeda in 1999 and 2000” were prevented. However, he could not provide any details on special operations.

Jeff Christensen/Reuters

The CIA also cites Tenet's own overly harsh reaction to the publication of this report, which he called "nonsense" and a "mistake."

“Your analysis unfairly and inaccurately portrays my actions and the heroic work of the men and women of the intelligence community. It's simply unfair to judge my work without having a full understanding of all the facts. “I did everything I could to report, warn and take measures to prevent terrorist attacks,” the former CIA director said in 2005.

In particular, the document states that Tenet recognized the need for a “comprehensive and interdepartmental plan” to combat Al-Qaeda (banned in the Russian Federation). However, he did nothing for this. “He bears full responsibility for the fact that such a strategic plan was never created, despite his clear position,” the document notes.

The CIA watchdog also prepared a report on the 2001 tragedy, which contained criticism of the Director of Central Intelligence and head of the US CIA, George Tenet, who held this post from 1997 to 2004.

Gazeta.Ru publishes the last words of passengers caught in four passenger aircraft x, which was destined to serve as a weapon in the hands of Arab terrorists. You can listen to words that convey the depth of fear and despair in the face of impending tragedy

“This date completely changed life in the USA and its largest metropolis, dispelled Americans’ ideas about safe world, in which they live,” emphasized Joe Daniels, director of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.

Peter Morgan/Reuters

All these manifestations of the “arrogance of power” caused rejection and protests both in America itself and beyond its borders. According to international polls, anti-American sentiment was growing around the world.

Domestic and foreign policy propaganda in the United States has also intensified. America showed particular disregard for international law by creating a concentration camp at its Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba, a kind of legal vacuum, to house and process people captured during anti-terrorist operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Prisoners in this “zone” are not essentially US prisoners of war and have no official legal status. In this regard, the authorities came to the possibility of keeping them behind bars almost indefinitely.

The atmosphere in the country gradually became tense - the States looked more like a besieged fortress. Denunciation was encouraged, but at the same time, leaks of official information and, in general, any deviations from the “patriotic consensus” were punished. One could lose one's job just by recognizing the courage of the terrorists.

After the events of September 11, 2001, the Republican administration of George W. Bush declared a “war on terror.” In this regard, Congress adopted a whole package of “emergency” laws, which, among other things, significantly expanded the powers of the intelligence services. Now they have the opportunity to conduct “biased interrogations” bordering on torture, and also closely monitor not only foreigners, but also citizens of the country. In addition, the United States increasingly closed its borders and tightened immigration and visa regulations.

Jeff Christensen/Reuters

However, Saudi Arabia responded by asking a Manhattan federal court to dismiss the 25 lawsuits because the plaintiffs have no evidence of Riyadh's involvement in the 9/11 attack.

Later, dozens of insurance companies also filed lawsuits against the two banks. Saudi Arabia, as well as companies associated with the Osama bin Laden family. The total amount of the claim was more than $4 billion.

In September 2016, the US Congress passed a law allowing the heirs of victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, since most of the terrorists were citizens of this country. A month later, the first lawsuit was filed by an American woman who lost her husband during a terrorist attack. In the spring of 2017, other relatives of the victims also filed a class action lawsuit.

Peter Morgan/Reuters

In particular, in May 2012, the trial of the mastermind and main organizer of the terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was detained in 2003 in Pakistan, began at the Guantanamo base. He has still not been sentenced.

In 2002 and 2003, police arrested six more people suspected of involvement in the attacks. After several years spent in CIA prisons, they were taken to a camp at the American base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Charges were brought against five of the suspects only in May 2011. To date, hearings in the case of the 2001 terrorist attacks continue.

Later, the identities of all the suicide bombers were established - they turned out to be citizens of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Lebanon. At the same time, the men were in the United States legally. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden also released a video message in which he admitted that he directly supervised the actions of 19 terrorists.

Win McNamee/Reuters

In November 2002, the United States created a special independent commission to investigate the September 11 terrorist attacks. Two years later, experts published the final report on the investigation into the circumstances of the tragedy - in total it took up 600 pages.

The exact amount of damage caused by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 is still unknown. In September 2006 - five years after the tragedy - the head of the White House, George W. Bush, said that the lowest estimate was $500 billion.

Those who survived September 11, 2001 in the United States will never be able to erase the events of those days from their memory.

“The fact that the towers could collapse seemed unimaginable. If you are an American, grew up here, and even if you are a foreigner who watched films about the United States, then for you they were a symbol, something like the Taj Mahal or even something more. They seemed eternal,” emphasizes Jonathan Wachtel.

The men spent almost 20 hours under the rubble; firefighters only reached McLaughlin on the morning of September 12. At the hospital, the doctors practically admitted their own powerlessness - the injuries of the injured sergeant were too serious. John was later put into a coma for 6 weeks and had about 30 operations, including skin grafts on his legs. After several years of therapy, he was able to return to normal life.

John McLaughlin was the last person to be pulled from the rubble of the collapsed World Trade Center.

Peter Morgan/Reuters

Sergeant John McLaughlin was at the scene of the tragedy of his own free will - having learned about what had happened, he went to help. They were on the ground floor connecting the buildings of the World Trade Center complex when the South Tower collapsed. The police were trapped under the rubble.

“At first I thought I died. I didn’t feel anything: I didn’t see, I didn’t smell, I didn’t hear. There was a ringing silence all around,” recalls John McLaughlin.

The rescuers were also in mortal danger - many of them risked their lives to get people out.

“Looking over my left shoulder, I managed to see a huge cloud of dust and a piece of falling concrete. The debris was flying straight towards me, from the outside it looked as if a block of ice that had broken off from a glacier was falling on you. I froze, sensing the end, and then I saw a fire truck. I decided to hide under it, not having the slightest confidence that it would save me. I just wanted to escape the wreckage and acted unconsciously,” said police Sergeant Dennis Frederick. He later learned that many of his colleagues had died in a building collapse on another staircase.

The lucky ones were also among those who were in the Pentagon on the fateful day. One of them was John Yates, a security manager.

“The room was just black, and everything I touched burned my hands. I crawled on all fours and realized that I was moving in the right direction when it became lighter. Once in the yard, I realized that I was badly burned, because I looked at my hands and saw how the skin was peeling off them. I remember sitting on the grass, and the doctor cut off my clothes. At the time of the explosion, five people were standing next to me. “I was the only one who survived,” the man recalls.

People in the South Tower made their way through stairwells completely littered with chunks of concrete, exploding soda cans and burst pipes.

“You could only hear people coughing and moaning. One of the women suffered from asthma and had to stop to catch her breath. The lady with the cut hand was walking with difficulty, her leg was bleeding. Every time she stepped on the floor, she left a bloody imprint. I tried to hold back my panic, and my inner voice told me: “Calm down,” says an employee of the Euro Brokers company, located within the walls of the south tower. She and all her companions managed to get out into the street.

On the 40th floor, Michael and his colleagues, who were going down, met firefighters. They advised us to continue moving. Having overcome the level of the 20th floor, Wright found himself on the site of the South Tower, where he realized the seriousness of what was happening: there were corpses everywhere, dozens of bodies.

The building began to collapse when Wright and his colleagues were at the escalator at one of the exits from the building. The air instantly turned black with clouds of dust. Michael was led outside by a fireman who knew the way through the surviving bookstore building.

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

“What helped me stay calm on the stairs was the thought of the unreality of what was happening; it seemed like the building couldn’t collapse. Once we had climbed a few floors, we relaxed a little. We knew something bad had happened, but once the fire was thirty floors above, it wasn’t as much of a concern,” Wright recalls.

However, there were those who managed to survive. Thus, 30-year-old Michael Wright was on the 81st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center at the time of the terrorist attack. According to the man, at a certain moment the building shook - he looked out of the toilet and saw fire. There was also a huge crack running along the floor of the corridor, the hall near the elevator was completely destroyed, and there was smoke everywhere.

2977 people became victims of terrorist attacks: 246 passengers and crew members of aircraft, 2606 people in New York, in the World Trade Center buildings and on the ground, 125 in the Pentagon building. Citizens of the United States and 91 other countries were killed.

The rescue also killed 341 firefighters and two paramedics, 60 police officers and eight ambulance personnel.

On the day of the tragedy, Alexander Bratersky, now a political commentator for Gazeta.Ru, was in New York. He witnessed what was happening in the city during these terrible hours. “On September 11, 2001, I was in the United States as part of the accompanying group “Tatu,” which received an MTV award on September 9,” says Alexander Bratersky. — Early in the morning I was on the subway when, together with other passengers, I saw a fire in one of the high-rise buildings. We were thrown out of the carriage - we learned from the police that the plane had crashed into the tower. We immediately thought it was a terrorist attack. I rushed to call a street payphone to go on air at Nashe Radio, where I was working at the time.”

A Gazeta.Ru columnist recalls that there was panic all around. “Many people were crying, police officers were shouting, 'Go north!', urging people to go to New Jersey on organized transport. Hearing that I spoke Russian, a girl grabbed my hand - she was confused. It turned out that the girl came from Ukraine. She was crying, so I took her to a cafe: there were people sitting there in complete silence and watching the towers fall on TV.”

When asked about the number of victims, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani replies: “More than you can bear.” At the same time, the mayor of Washington declares a state of emergency and the National Guard arrives in the city.

Mike Segar/Reuters

American Airlines confirms the loss of two aircraft. Within an hour, United Airlines also reported the loss of two of its aircraft.

The media are reporting the cancellation of the New York mayoral election due to the tragic events.

According to CNN, mass evacuations have begun in Washington and New York. A few minutes later, the mayor of New York also orders the evacuation of Lower Manhattan.

“I saw bloody people coming out of the towers. It was like a movie. Everything seemed somehow unreal. I distinctly remember the firefighters walking in with their gear, looking up and shaking their heads. Probably, many of them later died,” says an eyewitness to the events, Fox News producer Jonathan Wachtel.

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

The North Tower of the World Trade Center is completely destroyed - 1 hour and 41 minutes have passed since Flight 11 hit it. None of those on the upper floors survive. The Marriott Hotel, whose building was located between the two towers, was also completely destroyed. The destruction of the second tower, like the first, was shown live.

As head of state George W. Bush would later note, he perceived the third attack as a declaration of war. Immediately after that, he flew out of Florida.

“It became clearer in my head: what happened with the first plane could still be an accident, with the second it was definitely an attack, but with the third it was already a declaration of war,” the president wrote in his memoirs.

A wing of the Pentagon collapses.

United Airlines flight 93 falls 129 km southeast of Pittsburgh in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Presumably, his target was the Capitol building or the White House. However, passengers of the airliner intervened - having received messages about two other hijacked planes, they forcibly tried to regain control of the board. Realizing that they could not withstand the pressure of people, the terrorists sent the plane into the ground.

The South Tower of the World Trade Center is completely destroyed. 55 minutes have passed since Flight 175 hit it. Lower Manhattan is completely covered by huge clouds of dust.

Handout Old/Reuters

A riot of passengers on flight 93 begins. According to the crew of the plane flying past, the airliner is “shaking its wings” - at this time a struggle takes place in the cockpit between passengers and the hijackers.

The FAA command center requests aviation administration headquarters to intervene militarily in the Flight 93 situation. However, the FAA civil aviation The US still doesn't make a decision until the plane crashes.

Larry Downing/Reuters

After reports that Flight 77 was diverted towards Washington, the Secret Service decides to evacuate the Vice President from the White House.

Lost consciousness after the explosion, Fred Eichler opens his eyes from the light of a flashlight. A fireman climbed onto the floor and managed to save the people found, but he himself later died. When Fred got outside, he called his wife and heard her voice: “Run, run, run!” He ran - a few minutes later the North Tower collapsed.

The hijackers begin their assault on Flight 93's cockpit and seize control of the plane. Dispatchers in Cleveland receive a radio transmission from the liner: “Sit in your seats. We have a bomb."

Flight 93 receives a text warning from United Airlines dispatch: "Beware of cabin intrusion - two planes have crashed into the World Trade Center."

The Federal Aviation Administration is grounding all aircraft heading to or through New York City airspace, as well as the airspace of Boston and Washington. The ban applies to the entire country.

US President George W. Bush was caught in a terrorist attack in Florida. He is in a school in Sarasota during a reading lesson. The head of state reads “Little Goat” to the children, but the lesson is interrupted.

As the president sat in class, Chief of Staff Andy Card approached him and whispered in his ear that another plane had crashed into a second building. “America is under attack,” Chief of Staff Andy Card says in the president’s ear.

Win McNamee/Reuters

At about 959 km/h, Flight 175 crashes into the south side of the World Trade Center's south tower between floors 78 and 85. Parts of the plane penetrate the building and fly out of the east and north sides, some of which hit the ground six blocks away. Interruptions begin in the operation of television stations, since studios, transmitters and antenna equipment were located on the south tower.

Reuters

Flight 175 heads to New York. One of the passengers, Peter Henson, was able to reach his father from the plane:

“Everything is bad, father. The flight attendants are injured. They (the hijackers) seem to have knives and gas. They say they have a bomb. The situation on the plane is very bad. Passengers are in panic, some feel bad. The plane makes sudden movements. I don't think it's the pilot who controls the plane. I think we're going down. I think we're going to Chicago or something and we're going to crash into a building." The call is interrupted by a woman's scream.

Terrorists hijack Flight 77. The plane's transponder switches off and is out of radar range. Invisible to dispatchers, the airliner turns east. After this, Flight 77 continues to fly towards Washington for another 36 minutes without being displayed anywhere.

A flight attendant on Flight 175 contacts the United Airlines office in San Francisco. According to him, the plane has been hijacked, both pilots have been killed, and a flight attendant has been wounded. In addition, the kidnappers took control of the plane.

At least 100 people (in some sources the figure is 250 people), caught in the terrorist attack on the upper floors, jump out of the windows. A large portion of the floor on one of the floors of the north tower had caved in, leading people to believe the building might collapse.

One person, firefighter Daniel Suhr, who was standing on the ground, is killed when a person who jumped out of a window falls directly on him.

At approximately 790 km/h, Flight 11 crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center between the 93rd and 99th floors. The plane goes almost entirely inside the building, penetrates the building to the middle and cuts all three stairwells, covering them with debris. 80 tons of aviation kerosene mixed with the remains of the plane and the wreckage of the building create a huge fire.

Ray Stubblebine/Reuters

54-year-old insurance agent Fred Eichler arrived at his office on the 83rd floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center and at that time went to the restroom, where he met colleagues and stopped to chat. While talking, they see a plane rushing straight towards them. Literally a few minutes later, the men were sharply thrown back several tens of meters by the blast wave.

Amy Sweeney, a flight attendant on Flight 11, called American Airlines in Boston.

“Something is wrong. We are descending quickly. I see water. I see buildings. We're flying very, very low. We're flying too low." After a few seconds, she slowly says, “Oh, God.” The call is interrupted by loud, persistent noise.

Flight 175 hijacked. The flight attendant contacts the United Airlines office in San Francisco and reports that both pilots have been killed, a flight attendant has been wounded, and that the hijackers are probably flying the plane.

Ruben Sprich/Reuters

From international airport A United Airlines Boeing 757 takes off from Newark. The 37 passengers on board Flight 93 are bound for San Francisco after a 40-minute delay. There are four hijackers on board.

Boston Center contacts Otis AFB National Guard USA and reports the hijacking of flight 11. A few minutes later, the dispatcher also receives a message from the pilot of flight 175, who had previously taken off from Logan: the crew saw the hijacked flight 16 km from their side.

“... we heard a strange transmission at the moment when we took off from Boston. Someone could be heard pressing a microphone button and saying “everyone stay in their seats,” the pilots reported.

Flight 11's transponder switches off, but the plane remains on surveillance radar screens as a blank blip. additional information. It then makes a 100-degree turn south and heads straight for New York.

Suddenly a radio transmission breaks through to the dispatchers: “We have several planes. Be quiet and everything will be fine. We're heading back to the airport." These words are addressed to the people in the plane—the terrorist simply mixed up the buttons.

Another Boeing 757 belonging to American Airlines takes off from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles. Flight 77 carries 58 passengers and six crew members. And again there are five hijackers on board.

Flight 11 flight attendant Betty Ong calls the American Airlines office on the on-board phone.

“The cockpit is not responding, someone is injured in business class, I think they fired tear gas, we can’t breathe, I don’t know, it looks like we’re being overrun,” the girl said, adding that two were injured. flight attendants.

United Airlines Flight 175, another fully fueled Boeing 767, also departs Logan Airport for Los Angeles. There are 56 passengers and nine crew members on board. And five hijackers.

Flight 11 makes final contact with air traffic control in Boston. After just a few minutes, the flight stops following the dispatcher’s instructions and does not reach the required altitude of 10.7 thousand meters.

American Airlines flight 11 (Boeing 767) departs with a 14-minute delay. All five hijackers are on board among other passengers.

Five terrorists board the plane; their faces do not yet evoke any negative emotions among the other passengers. The first of the five to board the plane was Mohammed Atta along with Abdulaziz al-Omari.

Courtesy of the U.S. Department of Justice

American Airlines Flight 11 is preparing to take off at Boston's Logan Airport. According to the schedule, he should fly to Los Angeles. There are 86 passengers on board.

On September 4, 2001, the national security advisers of the George W. Bush administration approved a draft version of the plan to combat al-Qaeda (banned in the Russian Federation). The plan was due to be submitted on September 10. But the US President was away and didn’t see him.

The Memorandum reminded the US President that since 1997, Osama bin Laden had openly spoken about his intention to strike the United States. Moreover, in 1997 and 1998, he said on television that his supporters were ready to follow the example of Ramzi Youssef, who in 1993 left a truck filled with explosives in an underground garage of one of the World Trade Center towers. Then six people died and about a thousand were injured.

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.

New York District Judge George Daniels issued a default judgment ordering 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.

On the site of the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2011, there was the World Trade Center Memorial. 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 new World Trade Center complex was 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.

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.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

According to one version, the United States voluntarily sacrificed three thousand people so that the whole world could begin to fight terrorism

That fateful day in September 2001 shocked the whole world. People were glued to their TV screens, news channels broadcast images from New York: the twin towers destroyed and engulfed in fire, panic in the streets, the wailing of sirens.

According to the official version, on that day al-Qaeda terrorists (a total of 19 people) captured four passenger airliner, and two of them headed for New York. American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, United Airlines Flight 175- to the south tower.

The target of the third plane, the next one American Airlines Flight 77, was the Pentagon building located near Washington. The last airliner ( United Airlines Flight 93), apparently was supposed to destroy the Capitol building, but its passengers and crew prevented the terrorists, and it fell in a deserted area in Pennsylvania.

This terrorist attack was the largest in history and claimed the lives of 2,977 people. Another 24 are missing.

Found the culprits

Washington placed all the blame for what happened on the Al-Qaeda organization, headed by Osama bin Laden. The FBI immediately called the evidence that it was members of this organization that carried out the terrorist attack “clear and indisputable.”

Bin Laden himself, meanwhile, already on September 16, 2001, on the Qatari TV channel Al-Jazeera, declared his non-involvement in the terrorist attack, and on September 28 he repeated this in an interview with one of the Pakistani newspapers. His words were refuted in November, when in a destroyed house in Jalalabad, the American military found a video recording of a conversation between “terrorist No. 1” and a certain Khaleddom Al-Harbi. In the conversation, bin Laden confirms that he knew about the attacks in advance. Later, with his anti-American statements, he more than once dispelled doubts about his innocence.

Consequences

The tragedy of 9/11 united Western countries and made everyone sincerely worry about the Americans. To worry and “give ammo” when they were fighting Islamic terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan, to rejoice at the news of the destruction of bin Laden in 2011.

US President's Rating George W. Bush after the terrorist attacks rose to unprecedented heights and amounted to 86%. The mayor of New York also received praise Rudolph Giuliani, who gave speeches and was actively involved in the restoration of the city.

Terrorist attack or government conspiracy?

17 years have passed, but the debate about who organized the attack on the American people has still not subsided. Conspiracy theorists in the United States and other countries continue to amass evidence that the whole thing was planned at the highest levels and had far-reaching political goals. One of those seeking the truth was a famous Italian journalist, former member of the European Parliament. Giulietto Chiesa. According to him, there are at least 40 points indicating that all this is a “great deception.” Here are some of them.

Engineers, physicists and architects who studied how the towers fell say that the cause of the collapse was not an airplane hit, but a directed explosion, that is, bombs were planted inside the buildings. People who were inside at the time of the tragedy also talked about explosions, but no one listened to them.
It seems very strange to many that a businessman Larry Silverstein, closely associated with government circles, six weeks before the tragedy, signed a lease agreement for the completely unprofitable twin towers and tower No. 7, and also insured them, and insurance against terrorist attacks was prescribed as a separate clause. As a result of the collapse of the towers, Silverstein received more than eight billion dollars.
It is difficult to believe that 19 people, even with careful training, could bypass strict security systems and carry out this operation.
There is no evidence that the 19 people the FBI labeled as terrorists were actually on the planes. Some of them were seen by people in subsequent years, they were alive and well.
Cases where aircraft flight recorders are lost are extremely rare. “Four planes are eight “black boxes.” What does the official version tell us? Four of the eight “were not found.” That is 50% in our case. This is simply a world record for failure,” says Chiesa.
According to the government, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed vertically. However, part of its wreckage was found almost 13 kilometers from the crash site, and the testimony of the surviving recorder indicates that it fell at an angle of 35 degrees. It is also suspicious that the area was not contaminated with aviation fuel, although the aircraft's tanks should have been full.

The former European deputy is confident that it is not al-Qaeda, but conspirators led by representatives of the leadership of the United States and Saudi Arabia who are behind the perpetrators of the terrorist attack. They invented the terrorist attack precisely in order to rally the entire West around the United States and drag Europe into the war against terrorism. However, even if this is true, it will not be revealed soon, perhaps in decades, when some secret government archives are declassified.

Vanga's prediction

Few people know, but the famous Bulgarian clairvoyant Vanga predicted the September 11 terrorist attacks back in 1989.

“Fear, fear! Our American brothers will fall, pecked to death by iron birds. Wolves will howl from the bush, and innocent blood will flow like a river,” this is how she described 2001.

Let us explain that the people of the World Trade Center buildings were called “brothers” and “twins”. “Iron birds” are, of course, airplanes. And what a “bush” is, those who know can easily understand English language. “Bush” is Bush (“Bush”), that is, the surname of the 43rd President of the United States, during whose reign this terrorist attack occurred.

TBILISI, September 11 – Sputnik. The largest terrorist attack in human history was committed in the United States 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 were also listed as killed in the attacks, 15 of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were citizens of the United Kingdom. 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 the WTC South Tower 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 graduating from flight school in Oklahoma and training 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 to hijack a plane and 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.

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

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 of plotting 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.

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