United States President Joe Biden called on the Americans to show unity as the country prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

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On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the horrific 9/11 attacks, President Biden honors the lives of those we lost and highlights how even at our most vulnerable – unity is our greatest strength.<a href="https://t.co/TdVhw9TVpb">pic.twitter.com/TdVhw9TVpb</a>
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) <a href="https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1436454819028508672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 10, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Speaking in a six-minute recording at the White House that was shared on the official Twitter handle on Friday, Biden said, “To me, that’s the central lesson of September 11. It’s that at our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of all that makes us human, in the battle for the soul of America, unity is our greatest strength.”

The President’s appeal for unity comes at a time when the US is facing rising instances of hate crimes. According to a report by the FBI, hate crimes against African and Asian Americans surged in the past one year.

Also read |<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/america-was-very-far-away-how-afghans-remember-911-412095">&nbsp;'America was very far away': How Afghans remember 9/11</a>

Moreover, hate crimes against Arab Americans, Muslims and others perceived as Arab or Muslim had also surged post the 9/11 attacks. And while they have subsided in recent years, the numbers have never returned to levels seen before the attacks, the FBI data shows. More recently, the United States has also seen a rise in anti-Semitic discrimination.

“Unity doesn't mean we have to believe the same thing, but we must have a fundamental respect and faith in each other and in this nation," Biden said in the video.

Also watch

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On Saturday, Biden and first lady Jill Biden will visit New York City—where two airliners destroyed the World Trade Center and killed around 2,700 people—the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia—where a third airliner crashed—and Shanksville, Pennsylvania—where passengers forced down a fourth aircraft believed to have been headed to the U.S. Capitol or White House.

Joe Biden will then be joined at Ground Zero in New York by former president Barack Obama, whom he served for two terms as vice-president.

Small memorial ceremonies will be held across the US, and millions are expected to tune in to coverage that will blanket the TV networks throughout the day.

There will be six moments of silence during the ceremony, marking the moment each tower was struck and the time each fell, as well as the moment when the Pentagon was attacked, and the time that Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers stopped it from reaching its likely intended target of the US Capitol.

As three of the four most recent US presidents attend official ceremonies, Donald Trump will also reportedly visit the 9/11 memorial on Saturday afternoon, once the ceremony has finished and after Biden has left the city.

(With inputs from agencies)

United States President Joe Biden called on the Americans to show unity as the country prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

United States President Joe Biden called on the Americans to show unity as the country prepares to mark the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the horrific 9/11 attacks, President Biden honors the lives of those we lost and highlights how even at our most vulnerable – unity is our greatest strength.pic.twitter.com/TdVhw9TVpb — The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 10, 2021 × Speaking in a six-minute recording at the White House that was shared on the official Twitter handle on Friday, Biden said, “To me, that’s the central lesson of September 11. It’s that at our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of all that makes us human, in the battle for the soul of America, unity is our greatest strength.” The President’s appeal for unity comes at a time when the US is facing rising instances of hate crimes. According to a report by the FBI, hate crimes against African and Asian Americans surged in the past one year. Also read | 'America was very far away': How Afghans remember 9/11 Moreover, hate crimes against Arab Americans, Muslims and others perceived as Arab or Muslim had also surged post the 9/11 attacks. And while they have subsided in recent years, the numbers have never returned to levels seen before the attacks, the FBI data shows. More recently, the United States has also seen a rise in anti-Semitic discrimination. “Unity doesn't mean we have to believe the same thing, but we must have a fundamental respect and faith in each other and in this nation," Biden said in the video. Also watch On Saturday, Biden and first lady Jill Biden will visit New York City—where two airliners destroyed the World Trade Center and killed around 2,700 people—the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia—where a third airliner crashed—and Shanksville, Pennsylvania—where passengers forced down a fourth aircraft believed to have been headed to the U.S. Capitol or White House. Joe Biden will then be joined at Ground Zero in New York by former president Barack Obama, whom he served for two terms as vice-president. Small memorial ceremonies will be held across the US, and millions are expected to tune in to coverage that will blanket the TV networks throughout the day. There will be six moments of silence during the ceremony, marking the moment each tower was struck and the time each fell, as well as the moment when the Pentagon was attacked, and the time that Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers stopped it from reaching its likely intended target of the US Capitol. As three of the four most recent US presidents attend official ceremonies, Donald Trump will also reportedly visit the 9/11 memorial on Saturday afternoon, once the ceremony has finished and after Biden has left the city. (With inputs from agencies)

US President Joe Biden calls for unity on the eve of 9/11 attacks

With US marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban raised its flag on the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul on Saturday. &nbsp;

The development comes as the groups strengthens its grip on the country after it took over its control last month. &nbsp;

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s capital city, Kabul, has been put on high alert as the threat of a possible terror attack looms over the city. The city has been facing the danger of a possible attack from ISIS-K militants. &nbsp;

Watch:&nbsp;Kabul residents react on 20th anniversary of 9/11 attacks

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This threat has come a little after sources had warned authorities against a possible truck suicide attack in a protest that took place on Thursday. &nbsp;

An attack can take place in some crowded place by ISIS-K on the anniversary of the 9/11 attack. &nbsp;

Meanwhile, posters of Mullah Omar and Jalaluddin Haqqani have started popping up across Kabul now, a little after the new government was announced by Taliban. &nbsp;

Also Read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/911-anniversary-president-biden-makes-stops-at-all-three-attack-sites-412373" hreflang="en">9/11 anniversary: President Biden makes stops at all three attack sites</a>

Jalaluddin Haqqani was the founder of the Haqqani network, who died in 2018 in his home country, Afghanistan due to an unspecified terminal illness. &nbsp;

Mohammed Omar, also known as Mullah Omar, was the mastermind behind the establishment of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 1996 and was a commander of the Taliban. He died in 2013 but was declared dead in 2015. Sources had claimed he died of tuberculosis.&nbsp;

With US marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban raised its flag on the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul on Saturday. The development comes as the groups strengthens its grip on the country after it took over its control last month.

With US marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban raised its flag on the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul on Saturday. The development comes as the groups strengthens its grip on the country after it took over its control last month. Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s capital city, Kabul, has been put on high alert as the threat of a possible terror attack looms over the city. The city has been facing the danger of a possible attack from ISIS-K militants. Watch: Kabul residents react on 20th anniversary of 9/11 attacks × This threat has come a little after sources had warned authorities against a possible truck suicide attack in a protest that took place on Thursday. An attack can take place in some crowded place by ISIS-K on the anniversary of the 9/11 attack. Meanwhile, posters of Mullah Omar and Jalaluddin Haqqani have started popping up across Kabul now, a little after the new government was announced by Taliban. Also Read | 9/11 anniversary: President Biden makes stops at all three attack sites Jalaluddin Haqqani was the founder of the Haqqani network, who died in 2018 in his home country, Afghanistan due to an unspecified terminal illness. Mohammed Omar, also known as Mullah Omar, was the mastermind behind the establishment of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in 1996 and was a commander of the Taliban. He died in 2013 but was declared dead in 2015. Sources had claimed he died of tuberculosis.

Taliban raise flag on Afghan presidential palace as US marks 9/11 anniversary

On the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, residents of Kabul reflect on the last two decades. Some Afghans claim that these years didn't change much on the ground, others say that the US abandoned them. WION's Anas Mallick brings you a ground report.

Kabul residents react on 20th anniversary of 9/11 attacks

After announcing the new Afghanistan government, the Taliban will reportedly hold an oath taking ceremony on September 11- the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in the US.

Reports: Taliban led govt in Afghanistan to hold oath taking ceremony on 9/11 anniversary

United States former president Donald Trump would spend the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by hosting a boxing commentary in Florida.

He will be joined by his son Donald Trump Jr&nbsp;at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood to call the entire four-fight telecast between Evander Holyfield and Vitor Belfort.

“I love great fighters and great fights,” the Trump Sr, a former boxing promoter, said in a statement.

“I look forward to seeing both this Saturday night and sharing my thoughts ringside. You won't want to miss this special event,” he added.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/two-decades-after-911-muslim-americans-still-fighting-bias-411376">Two decades after 9/11, Muslim Americans still fighting bias</a>

The event has been termed as “the most anticipated heavyweight fight of the year”, with the father-son duo calling the entire telecast.

Trump’ controversial term came to an end in January after Joe Biden won the mandate. Since leaving the office, he has not made any public appearances.

He was also permanently suspended from Twitter after his claims of an “election fraud” was called out for spreading fake news.

75-year-old Trump is a veteran of the fighting game, having hosted many boxing matches in the 1980s and '90s at his casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Prior to his single-term presidency, Trump styled himself as a business adviser to Mike Tyson and promoted a handful of the world’s biggest fights and names in the late 1980s and early 90s.

(With inputs from agencies)

United States former president Donald Trump would spend the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by hosting a boxing commentary in Florida. He will be joined by his son Donald Trump Jr at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood to call the entire four-fight telecast between Evander Holyfield and Vitor Belfort.

United States former president Donald Trump would spend the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by hosting a boxing commentary in Florida. He will be joined by his son Donald Trump Jr at the Hard Rock Casino in Hollywood to call the entire four-fight telecast between Evander Holyfield and Vitor Belfort. “I love great fighters and great fights,” the Trump Sr, a former boxing promoter, said in a statement. “I look forward to seeing both this Saturday night and sharing my thoughts ringside. You won't want to miss this special event,” he added. Also read | Two decades after 9/11, Muslim Americans still fighting bias The event has been termed as “the most anticipated heavyweight fight of the year”, with the father-son duo calling the entire telecast. Trump’ controversial term came to an end in January after Joe Biden won the mandate. Since leaving the office, he has not made any public appearances. He was also permanently suspended from Twitter after his claims of an “election fraud” was called out for spreading fake news. 75-year-old Trump is a veteran of the fighting game, having hosted many boxing matches in the 1980s and '90s at his casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Prior to his single-term presidency, Trump styled himself as a business adviser to Mike Tyson and promoted a handful of the world’s biggest fights and names in the late 1980s and early 90s. (With inputs from agencies)

Donald Trump to offer commentary on boxing match on 20th anniversary of 9/11 attacks

The prosecution of alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others restarts Tuesday, just days before the 20th anniversary of the attacks, stirring new hopes for justice and retribution.

Mohammed and his co-defendants, who have been locked up at the "War on Terror" prison at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for nearly 15 years, will appear in the military tribunal here for the first time since early 2019.&nbsp;

But after a 17-month halt due to the coronavirus pandemic, the proceedings appear likely to continue where they left off, mired in the defense's efforts to disqualify most of the government's evidence as tainted by the torture the defendants underwent in CIA custody.

On Sunday, the new military judge, Air Force Colonel Matthew McCall &nbsp;-- the case's eighth -- signaled a slow start, deciding that an initial hearing focused on his own qualifications will take place on Tuesday. Lawyers for both sides are allowed in a war crimes tribunal to question a new judge for possible bias.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/freedom-tower-the-skyscraper-symbolising-new-yorks-resilience-411055">'Freedom Tower' - the skyscraper symbolising New York's resilience</a>

The rest of the week will mostly involve meetings with the military prosecutors and defense teams.

With scores of motions lined up to demand evidence that military prosecutors refuse to hand over, defense attorneys said the pretrial phase could easily last another year, placing far over the horizon any hope for a jury trial and verdict.

Asked if the case could ever reach that point, one defense attorney, James Connell, replied, "I don't know."

Lasting impact of torture

Attorneys say the five defendants -- Mohammed, Ammar al-Baluchi, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi -- are all weak and suffer the lasting effects of severe torture endured in secretive CIA "black" sites between 2002 and 2006.

Added to that, the attorneys say, is the cumulative impact of 15 years in harsh, isolated conditions since arriving.&nbsp;

They will appear in an ultra-secure military commissions courtroom surrounded by fences of razor wire, each with his own defense team.&nbsp;

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/how-911-changed-air-travel-more-security-less-privacy-411141">How 9/11 changed air travel: More security, less privacy</a>

In the audience will be family members of some of the 2,976 people they are accused of murdering two decades ago, as well as a large contingent of reporters to mark the confluence with the somber anniversary on Saturday.

The five face the death penalty on charges of murder and terrorism in the war crimes tribunal.

They are represented by attorneys assigned by the military, as well as pro-bono lawyers from the private sector and non-governmental organizations.

Open and shut?

Since the case started, prosecutors have regarded it as open-and-shut, even without the tainted information reaped from the brutal CIA interrogations.

Instead, prosecutors maintain that the defendants all provided solid evidence of conspiring in the 9/11 attacks during so-called "clean-team" interrogations conducted by the FBI in 2007, after the five arrived at Guantanamo.

But defense attorneys argue that the 2007 interrogations were hardly "clean" because the FBI also took part in the CIA's torture program, and their interrogations carried a similar menace.

The defendants, still feeling the impact of torture at that time, spoke to the FBI under the real fear that it would start again, the defense contends.

"Make no mistake, covering up torture is the reason that these men were brought to Guantanamo" instead of the US federal justice system, said Connell, who represents Baluchi.

"The cover-up of torture is also the reason that we are all gathered at Guantanamo for the 42nd hearing in the 9/11 military commission," he said.

Delays

To prove their case, the defense is demanding huge amounts of classified materials that the government is resisting turning over, on everything from the original torture program to conditions at Guantanamo to health assessments.&nbsp;

Defense lawyers also want to interview dozens more witnesses, after 12 already appeared before the court, including two men who oversaw the CIA program.

The demands have delayed the trial, but the defense blames the government for actively hiding materials relevant to the case.

Alka Pradhan, another defense attorney, noted that it took the government six years to admit that the FBI took part in the CIA's torture program.

"This case wears you down," she said.&nbsp;

"They are withholding things that are normal procedure in court."

The prosecution of alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others restarts Tuesday, just days before the 20th anniversary of the attacks, stirring new hopes for justice and retribution.

The prosecution of alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others restarts Tuesday, just days before the 20th anniversary of the attacks, stirring new hopes for justice and retribution. Mohammed and his co-defendants, who have been locked up at the "War on Terror" prison at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for nearly 15 years, will appear in the military tribunal here for the first time since early 2019. But after a 17-month halt due to the coronavirus pandemic, the proceedings appear likely to continue where they left off, mired in the defense's efforts to disqualify most of the government's evidence as tainted by the torture the defendants underwent in CIA custody. On Sunday, the new military judge, Air Force Colonel Matthew McCall -- the case's eighth -- signaled a slow start, deciding that an initial hearing focused on his own qualifications will take place on Tuesday. Lawyers for both sides are allowed in a war crimes tribunal to question a new judge for possible bias. Also Read | 'Freedom Tower' - the skyscraper symbolising New York's resilience The rest of the week will mostly involve meetings with the military prosecutors and defense teams. With scores of motions lined up to demand evidence that military prosecutors refuse to hand over, defense attorneys said the pretrial phase could easily last another year, placing far over the horizon any hope for a jury trial and verdict. Asked if the case could ever reach that point, one defense attorney, James Connell, replied, "I don't know." Lasting impact of torture Attorneys say the five defendants -- Mohammed, Ammar al-Baluchi, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi -- are all weak and suffer the lasting effects of severe torture endured in secretive CIA "black" sites between 2002 and 2006. Added to that, the attorneys say, is the cumulative impact of 15 years in harsh, isolated conditions since arriving. They will appear in an ultra-secure military commissions courtroom surrounded by fences of razor wire, each with his own defense team. Also Read | How 9/11 changed air travel: More security, less privacy In the audience will be family members of some of the 2,976 people they are accused of murdering two decades ago, as well as a large contingent of reporters to mark the confluence with the somber anniversary on Saturday. The five face the death penalty on charges of murder and terrorism in the war crimes tribunal. They are represented by attorneys assigned by the military, as well as pro-bono lawyers from the private sector and non-governmental organizations. Open and shut? Since the case started, prosecutors have regarded it as open-and-shut, even without the tainted information reaped from the brutal CIA interrogations. Instead, prosecutors maintain that the defendants all provided solid evidence of conspiring in the 9/11 attacks during so-called "clean-team" interrogations conducted by the FBI in 2007, after the five arrived at Guantanamo. But defense attorneys argue that the 2007 interrogations were hardly "clean" because the FBI also took part in the CIA's torture program, and their interrogations carried a similar menace. The defendants, still feeling the impact of torture at that time, spoke to the FBI under the real fear that it would start again, the defense contends. "Make no mistake, covering up torture is the reason that these men were brought to Guantanamo" instead of the US federal justice system, said Connell, who represents Baluchi. "The cover-up of torture is also the reason that we are all gathered at Guantanamo for the 42nd hearing in the 9/11 military commission," he said. Delays To prove their case, the defense is demanding huge amounts of classified materials that the government is resisting turning over, on everything from the original torture program to conditions at Guantanamo to health assessments. Defense lawyers also want to interview dozens more witnesses, after 12 already appeared before the court, including two men who oversaw the CIA program. The demands have delayed the trial, but the defense blames the government for actively hiding materials relevant to the case. Alka Pradhan, another defense attorney, noted that it took the government six years to admit that the FBI took part in the CIA's torture program. "This case wears you down," she said. "They are withholding things that are normal procedure in court."

Trial of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed restarts, days before attack's 20th anniversary

A car passed, the driver's window rolled down and the man spat an epithet at two little girls wearing their hijabs: "Terrorist!"

It was 2001, mere weeks after the twin towers at the World Trade Center fell, and 10-year-old Shahana Hanif and her younger sister were walking to the local mosque from their Brooklyn home.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trial-of-accused-911-mastermind-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-restarts-days-before-attacks-20th-anniversary-411259">Trial of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed restarts, days before attack's 20th anniversary</a>

Unsure, afraid, the girls ran.

As the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks approaches, Hanif can still recall the shock of the moment, her confusion over how anyone could look at her, a child, and see a threat.

"It's not a nice, kind word. It means violence, it means dangerous. It is meant to shock whoever ... Is on the receiving end of it,"&nbsp;she says.

But the incident also spurred a determination to speak out for herself and others that has helped get her to where she is today: a community organizer strongly favoured to win a seat on the New York City Council in the upcoming municipal election.

Like Hanif, other young American Muslims have grown up under the shadow of 9/11. Many have faced hostility and surveillance, mistrust and suspicion, questions about their Muslim faith and doubts over their Americanness.

They've also found ways forward, ways to fight back against bias, to organize, to craft nuanced personal narratives about their identities. In the process, they've built bridges, challenged stereotypes and carved out new spaces for themselves.

There is "this sense of being Muslim as a kind of important identity marker, regardless of your relationship with Islam as a faith,"&nbsp;says Eman Abdelhadi, a sociologist at The University of Chicago who studies Muslim communities.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/the-dogs-of-911-their-failed-searches-for-life-helped-sustain-it-411164">The dogs of 9/11: Their failed searches for life helped sustain it</a>

"That's been one of the main effects in people's lives,&nbsp;it has shaped the ways the community has developed."

&nbsp;A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted ahead of the 9/11 anniversary found that 53 per cent of Americans have unfavourable views toward Islam, compared with 42 per cent&nbsp;who have favourable ones. This stands in contrast to Americans' opinions about Christianity and Judaism, for which most respondents expressed favourable views.

Mistrust and suspicion of Muslims didn't start with 9/11, but the attacks dramatically intensified those animosities. 
Accustomed to being ignored or targeted by low-level harassment, the country's wide-ranging and diverse Muslim communities were foisted into the spotlight, says Youssef Chouhoud, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University in Virginia.

"Your sense of who you were was becoming more formed, not just Muslim but American Muslim,"&nbsp;he says.

"What distinguished you as an American Muslim? Could you be fully both, or did you have to choose? There was a lot of grappling with what that meant."&nbsp;In Hanif's case, there was no blueprint to navigate the complexities of that time.

"Fifth-grader me wasn't naive or too young to know Muslims are in danger,"&nbsp;she later wrote in an essay about the aftermath of 9/11. "...Flashing an American flag from our first-floor windows didn't make me more American. Born in Brooklyn didn't make me more American."

A young Hanif gathered neighbourhood friends, and an older cousin helped them write a letter to then-President George W. Bush asking for protection.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/is-911-a-day-or-is-it-an-era-411151">Is 9/11 a day, or is it an Era?</a>

"We knew," she says, "that we would become like warriors of this community." But being warriors often carries a price, with wounds that linger.

Ishaq Pathan, 26, recalls the time a boy told him he seemed angry and wondered if he was going to blow up their Connecticut school.&nbsp;He remembers the helplessness he felt when he was taken aside at an airport for additional questioning upon returning to the United States after a college semester in Morocco.

The agent looked through his belongings, including the laptop where he kept a private journal and started reading it. 
"I remember being like, Hey, do you have to read that?"&nbsp;Pathan says. The agent 'just looks at me like, You know, I can read anything on your computer. I'm entitled to anything here.' And at that point, I remember having tears in my eyes. I was completely and utterly powerless."&nbsp;Pathan couldn't accept it.

"You go to school with other people of different backgrounds and you realize ... What the promise of the United States is,"&nbsp;he says. "And when you see it not living up to that promise, then I think it instils in us a sense of wanting to help and fix that."&nbsp;He now works as the San Francisco Bay Area director for the nonprofit Islamic Networks Group, where he hopes to help a younger generation grow confident in their Muslim identity.

Pathan recently chatted with a group of boys about their summer activities. At times, the boys ate watermelon or played on a trampoline. At other moments, the talk turned serious: What would they do if a student pretended to blow himself up while yelling "Allahu akbar,"&nbsp;or "God is great"? What can they do about stereotypical depictions of Muslims on TV?

"I had always viewed 9/11 as probably one of the most pivotal moments of my life and of the lives of Americans across the board,"&nbsp;Pathan says.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/how-911-changed-air-travel-more-security-less-privacy-411141">How 9/11 changed air travel: More security, less privacy</a>

"The aftermath of it ... Is what pushed me to do what I do today."

That aftermath has also helped motivate Shukri Olow to do what she is doing;&nbsp;run for office. Born in Somalia, Olow fled the civil war with her family and lived in refugee camps in Kenya for years before coming to the United States when she was 10.

She found a home in a vibrant public housing complex in the city of Kent, south of Seattle. There, residents from different countries communicated across language and cultural barriers, borrowing salt from each other or watching one another's kids. Olow felt she flourished in that environment.

Then 9/11 happened. She recalls feeling confused when a teacher asked her, "What are your people doing?"&nbsp;But she also remembers others who said that "this isn't our fault... And we need to make sure that you're safe."

In a 2017 Pew Research Center survey of US&nbsp;Muslims, nearly half of respondents said they experienced at least one instance of religious discrimination within the year before; yet 49 per cent said someone expressed support for them because of their religion in the previous year.

Overwhelmingly, the study found respondents proud to be both Muslim and American. For some, including Olow, there were occasional identity crises growing up. 
'Who am I?',&nbsp;which I think is what many young people kind of go through in life in general,"&nbsp;she says. "But for those of us who live at the intersection of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia ... It was really hard."

But her experiences from that time also helped form her identity. She is now seeking a seat on the King County Council.

"There are many young people who have multiple identities who have felt that they don't belong here, that they are not welcomed here,"&nbsp;she says. "I was one of those young people. And so, I try to do what I can to make sure that more of us know that this is our nation, too."

After 9/11, some American Muslims chose to dispel misconceptions about their faith by building personal connections. They shared coffee or broke bread with strangers as they fielded myriad questions:&nbsp;from how Islam views women and Jesus to how to combat extremism.

Mansoor Shams has travelled across the US&nbsp;With a sign that reads: "I'm Muslim and a US&nbsp;Marine, ask anything."&nbsp;It's part of the 39-year-old's efforts to teach others about his faith and counter hate through dialogue.

Shams, who served in the Marines from 2000 to 2004, was called names like "Taliban,"&nbsp;"terrorist"&nbsp;and "Osama bin Laden"&nbsp;by some of his fellow Marines after 9/11.

One of his most memorable interactions, he says, was at Liberty University in Virginia, where he spoke in 2019 to students of the Christian institution. Some, he says, still call him with questions about Islam.

"There's this mutual love and respect,"&nbsp;he says.&nbsp;

Shams wishes his current work wasn't needed but feels a responsibility to share a counternarrative he says many Americans don't know.

A car passed, the driver's window rolled down and the man spat an epithet at two little girls wearing their hijabs: "Terrorist!" It was 2001, mere weeks after the twin towers at the World Trade Center fell, and 10-year-old Shahana Hanif and her younger sister were walking to the local mosque from their Brooklyn home.

A car passed, the driver's window rolled down and the man spat an epithet at two little girls wearing their hijabs: "Terrorist!" It was 2001, mere weeks after the twin towers at the World Trade Center fell, and 10-year-old Shahana Hanif and her younger sister were walking to the local mosque from their Brooklyn home. Also read | Trial of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed restarts, days before attack's 20th anniversary Unsure, afraid, the girls ran. As the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks approaches, Hanif can still recall the shock of the moment, her confusion over how anyone could look at her, a child, and see a threat. "It's not a nice, kind word. It means violence, it means dangerous. It is meant to shock whoever ... Is on the receiving end of it," she says. But the incident also spurred a determination to speak out for herself and others that has helped get her to where she is today: a community organizer strongly favoured to win a seat on the New York City Council in the upcoming municipal election. Like Hanif, other young American Muslims have grown up under the shadow of 9/11. Many have faced hostility and surveillance, mistrust and suspicion, questions about their Muslim faith and doubts over their Americanness. They've also found ways forward, ways to fight back against bias, to organize, to craft nuanced personal narratives about their identities. In the process, they've built bridges, challenged stereotypes and carved out new spaces for themselves. There is "this sense of being Muslim as a kind of important identity marker, regardless of your relationship with Islam as a faith," says Eman Abdelhadi, a sociologist at The University of Chicago who studies Muslim communities. Also read | The dogs of 9/11: Their failed searches for life helped sustain it "That's been one of the main effects in people's lives, it has shaped the ways the community has developed." A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted ahead of the 9/11 anniversary found that 53 per cent of Americans have unfavourable views toward Islam, compared with 42 per cent who have favourable ones. This stands in contrast to Americans' opinions about Christianity and Judaism, for which most respondents expressed favourable views. Mistrust and suspicion of Muslims didn't start with 9/11, but the attacks dramatically intensified those animosities. Accustomed to being ignored or targeted by low-level harassment, the country's wide-ranging and diverse Muslim communities were foisted into the spotlight, says Youssef Chouhoud, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. "Your sense of who you were was becoming more formed, not just Muslim but American Muslim," he says. "What distinguished you as an American Muslim? Could you be fully both, or did you have to choose? There was a lot of grappling with what that meant." In Hanif's case, there was no blueprint to navigate the complexities of that time. "Fifth-grader me wasn't naive or too young to know Muslims are in danger," she later wrote in an essay about the aftermath of 9/11. "...Flashing an American flag from our first-floor windows didn't make me more American. Born in Brooklyn didn't make me more American." A young Hanif gathered neighbourhood friends, and an older cousin helped them write a letter to then-President George W. Bush asking for protection. Also read | Is 9/11 a day, or is it an Era? "We knew," she says, "that we would become like warriors of this community." But being warriors often carries a price, with wounds that linger. Ishaq Pathan, 26, recalls the time a boy told him he seemed angry and wondered if he was going to blow up their Connecticut school. He remembers the helplessness he felt when he was taken aside at an airport for additional questioning upon returning to the United States after a college semester in Morocco. The agent looked through his belongings, including the laptop where he kept a private journal and started reading it. "I remember being like, Hey, do you have to read that?" Pathan says. The agent 'just looks at me like, You know, I can read anything on your computer. I'm entitled to anything here.' And at that point, I remember having tears in my eyes. I was completely and utterly powerless." Pathan couldn't accept it. "You go to school with other people of different backgrounds and you realize ... What the promise of the United States is," he says. "And when you see it not living up to that promise, then I think it instils in us a sense of wanting to help and fix that." He now works as the San Francisco Bay Area director for the nonprofit Islamic Networks Group, where he hopes to help a younger generation grow confident in their Muslim identity. Pathan recently chatted with a group of boys about their summer activities. At times, the boys ate watermelon or played on a trampoline. At other moments, the talk turned serious: What would they do if a student pretended to blow himself up while yelling "Allahu akbar," or "God is great"? What can they do about stereotypical depictions of Muslims on TV? "I had always viewed 9/11 as probably one of the most pivotal moments of my life and of the lives of Americans across the board," Pathan says. Also read | How 9/11 changed air travel: More security, less privacy "The aftermath of it ... Is what pushed me to do what I do today." That aftermath has also helped motivate Shukri Olow to do what she is doing; run for office. Born in Somalia, Olow fled the civil war with her family and lived in refugee camps in Kenya for years before coming to the United States when she was 10. She found a home in a vibrant public housing complex in the city of Kent, south of Seattle. There, residents from different countries communicated across language and cultural barriers, borrowing salt from each other or watching one another's kids. Olow felt she flourished in that environment. Then 9/11 happened. She recalls feeling confused when a teacher asked her, "What are your people doing?" But she also remembers others who said that "this isn't our fault... And we need to make sure that you're safe." In a 2017 Pew Research Center survey of US Muslims, nearly half of respondents said they experienced at least one instance of religious discrimination within the year before; yet 49 per cent said someone expressed support for them because of their religion in the previous year. Overwhelmingly, the study found respondents proud to be both Muslim and American. For some, including Olow, there were occasional identity crises growing up. 'Who am I?', which I think is what many young people kind of go through in life in general," she says. "But for those of us who live at the intersection of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia ... It was really hard." But her experiences from that time also helped form her identity. She is now seeking a seat on the King County Council. "There are many young people who have multiple identities who have felt that they don't belong here, that they are not welcomed here," she says. "I was one of those young people. And so, I try to do what I can to make sure that more of us know that this is our nation, too." After 9/11, some American Muslims chose to dispel misconceptions about their faith by building personal connections. They shared coffee or broke bread with strangers as they fielded myriad questions: from how Islam views women and Jesus to how to combat extremism. Mansoor Shams has travelled across the US With a sign that reads: "I'm Muslim and a US Marine, ask anything." It's part of the 39-year-old's efforts to teach others about his faith and counter hate through dialogue. Shams, who served in the Marines from 2000 to 2004, was called names like "Taliban," "terrorist" and "Osama bin Laden" by some of his fellow Marines after 9/11. One of his most memorable interactions, he says, was at Liberty University in Virginia, where he spoke in 2019 to students of the Christian institution. Some, he says, still call him with questions about Islam. "There's this mutual love and respect," he says. Shams wishes his current work wasn't needed but feels a responsibility to share a counternarrative he says many Americans don't know.

Two decades after 9/11, Muslim Americans still fighting bias

For more than two weeks after the twin towers collapsed on 9/11, hundreds of search and rescue dogs hunted for signs of life in the smouldering ruins.

Ricky, a 17-inch-tall rat terrier, was able to squeeze into tight spaces. Trakr, a German shepherd from Canada, combed the wreckage for two days — then collapsed from smoke inhalation, exhaustion and burns. Riley, a 4-year-old golden retriever, searched deep into the debris fields and helped locate the bodies of several firefighters.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/is-911-a-day-or-is-it-an-era-411151">Is 9/11 a day, or is it an Era?</a>

“We went there expecting to find hundreds of people trapped,” said Chris Selfridge, 54, of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, who was Riley’s handler. “But we didn’t find anybody alive.”

Though there were not many survivors to find amid the destruction, the devotion of the dogs to their work became an inspiring sight to emergency medical workers and to others who witnessed the urgent rescue effort. Now, as the 20th anniversary of the attacks approaches, those efforts are being memorialized in an exhibition opening Wednesday at the American Kennel Club’s Museum of the Dog.

Titled “9/11 Remembered: Search &amp; Rescue Dogs,” the exhibition also looks beyond the parameters of 9/11 to recognize dogs who worked at other disasters as well, not just in the United States, but around the world. The show will also include several pieces from the DOGNY project, an art initiative that features life-size sculptures of German shepherds. Roughly 100 of them were placed around New York after the attacks.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/how-911-changed-air-travel-more-security-less-privacy-411141">How 9/11 changed air travel: More security, less privacy</a>

“I hope this can be a little more uplifting,” Alan Fausel, the museum’s executive director, said. “We also showcase some of the brighter sides and positive outcomes: Rex of White Way rescued a whole train of people stuck in the Sierra Nevadas in the ’50s, and we’ll talk about St. Bernards such as Barry, a very famous St. Bernard in the St. Bernard hospice in Switzerland who rescued avalanche victims.”

The display follows up on an ongoing temporary exhibition at the 9/11 Memorial &amp; Museum in lower Manhattan, “K-9 Courage,” which opened in January 2020, but was hardly seen because of the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus">pandemic</a>. That exhibit, which runs into spring 2022, features photographer Charlotte Dumas’ portraits of 15 of the dogs who aided in recovery efforts at ground zero, taken for the 10-year anniversary in 2011, alongside photos of them working in the wreckage.

“You look into their eyes in their old age and can, with the help of the documentary photographs, imagine what their eyes had seen,” Alice M. Greenwald, the chief executive and president of the museum, said. “But you also know that they’ve lived lives of service and surely, there is satisfaction in that — for dogs and human beings, alike.”

Some 2,753 people were killed when the terrorist group al-Qaida hijacked two planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center’s towers, causing them both to collapse in the span of 102 minutes.

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As an acrid dust cloud enveloped lower Manhattan and a nation mourned, hundreds of search and rescue teams from around the country descended on ground zero to join the search for survivors, with the first dogs, from the NYPD’s K-9 urban search and rescue team, arriving at the South Tower just 15 minutes after its collapse.

The teams worked 12-hour days for an average of 10 days straight.

The New York Police Department has reported that though survivors were found in the rubble, none of those was the direct result of a dog’s discovery. Several people, though, have credited Trackr, a retired police dog, with having played a role in one rescue. His handler, a Canadian policeman who drove down from Nova Scotia, was suspended from his job for leaving without permission when his department saw him on television aiding the rescue efforts. (Jane Goodall later presented him with a humanitarian service award).

Dr. Cynthia Otto, the director of the Penn Vet Working Dog Center in Philadelphia who looked after the dogs at ground zero, said the that, for the most part,&nbsp;the dogs’ injuries were only “very minor” — cuts and scrapes on their paw pads, legs and bellies, mainly, as well as fatigue and heat exhaustion. The bigger challenge, she said, was the frustration of searching for hours and not finding anyone. When the dogs began to get discouraged and lose their motivation to search, handlers had to stage “mock finds” so the dogs could feel successful.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/twenty-years-on-pandemic-gives-911-conspiracists-fresh-impetus-411061">Twenty years on, pandemic gives 9/11 conspiracists fresh impetus</a>

“When they train, they don’t search for hours without finding anybody,” she said in a recent phone conversation. “You need to remind the dogs every so often that they do get to win.”

Bretagne (pronounced Brittany), a golden retriever who was then 2 years old, arrived the week after the attacks and spent 10 days searching for survivors. She slept in a kennel at the Javits Center alongside her handler, Denise Corliss, an electrical engineer from Texas who had traveled to the city with Texas Task Force 1, one of the 28 teams that form the FEMA National Urban Search and Rescue System.

Corliss, 56, said Bretagne, who died in 2016, was the last known living service dog to have been employed by FEMA at ground zero. She brought comfort to rescuers and firefighters, who would approach the dog and pet her. Soon, they’d open up to Corliss, sharing personal stories of the missing friends and colleagues they were searching for.

“A gentleman came up and started petting Bretagne and said, ‘You know, I don’t really like dogs,’” she said. “Which was a surprising statement considering he was kneeling down to pet her. I said ‘Oh?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, my best friend loved dogs; he had a golden retriever himself. My best friend is somewhere out there,’ and he pointed to the pile. It was a tie back to his missing friend.”

And that, Fausel said, is what the Museum of the Dog hopes to capture in its new exhibition.

“The search and rescue dogs didn’t rescue any people from the pile,” he said. “But I think they somewhat rescued the people who were searching.”

For more than two weeks after the twin towers collapsed on 9/11, hundreds of search and rescue dogs hunted for signs of life in the smouldering ruins. Ricky, a 17-inch-tall rat terrier, was able to squeeze into tight spaces.

For more than two weeks after the twin towers collapsed on 9/11, hundreds of search and rescue dogs hunted for signs of life in the smouldering ruins. Ricky, a 17-inch-tall rat terrier, was able to squeeze into tight spaces. Trakr, a German shepherd from Canada, combed the wreckage for two days — then collapsed from smoke inhalation, exhaustion and burns. Riley, a 4-year-old golden retriever, searched deep into the debris fields and helped locate the bodies of several firefighters. Also read | Is 9/11 a day, or is it an Era? “We went there expecting to find hundreds of people trapped,” said Chris Selfridge, 54, of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, who was Riley’s handler. “But we didn’t find anybody alive.” Though there were not many survivors to find amid the destruction, the devotion of the dogs to their work became an inspiring sight to emergency medical workers and to others who witnessed the urgent rescue effort. Now, as the 20th anniversary of the attacks approaches, those efforts are being memorialized in an exhibition opening Wednesday at the American Kennel Club’s Museum of the Dog. Titled “9/11 Remembered: Search & Rescue Dogs,” the exhibition also looks beyond the parameters of 9/11 to recognize dogs who worked at other disasters as well, not just in the United States, but around the world. The show will also include several pieces from the DOGNY project, an art initiative that features life-size sculptures of German shepherds. Roughly 100 of them were placed around New York after the attacks. Also read | How 9/11 changed air travel: More security, less privacy “I hope this can be a little more uplifting,” Alan Fausel, the museum’s executive director, said. “We also showcase some of the brighter sides and positive outcomes: Rex of White Way rescued a whole train of people stuck in the Sierra Nevadas in the ’50s, and we’ll talk about St. Bernards such as Barry, a very famous St. Bernard in the St. Bernard hospice in Switzerland who rescued avalanche victims.” The display follows up on an ongoing temporary exhibition at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in lower Manhattan, “K-9 Courage,” which opened in January 2020, but was hardly seen because of the pandemic. That exhibit, which runs into spring 2022, features photographer Charlotte Dumas’ portraits of 15 of the dogs who aided in recovery efforts at ground zero, taken for the 10-year anniversary in 2011, alongside photos of them working in the wreckage. “You look into their eyes in their old age and can, with the help of the documentary photographs, imagine what their eyes had seen,” Alice M. Greenwald, the chief executive and president of the museum, said. “But you also know that they’ve lived lives of service and surely, there is satisfaction in that — for dogs and human beings, alike.” Some 2,753 people were killed when the terrorist group al-Qaida hijacked two planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center’s towers, causing them both to collapse in the span of 102 minutes. Also read | 'Freedom Tower' - the skyscraper symbolising New York's resilience As an acrid dust cloud enveloped lower Manhattan and a nation mourned, hundreds of search and rescue teams from around the country descended on ground zero to join the search for survivors, with the first dogs, from the NYPD’s K-9 urban search and rescue team, arriving at the South Tower just 15 minutes after its collapse. The teams worked 12-hour days for an average of 10 days straight. The New York Police Department has reported that though survivors were found in the rubble, none of those was the direct result of a dog’s discovery. Several people, though, have credited Trackr, a retired police dog, with having played a role in one rescue. His handler, a Canadian policeman who drove down from Nova Scotia, was suspended from his job for leaving without permission when his department saw him on television aiding the rescue efforts. (Jane Goodall later presented him with a humanitarian service award). Dr. Cynthia Otto, the director of the Penn Vet Working Dog Center in Philadelphia who looked after the dogs at ground zero, said the that, for the most part, the dogs’ injuries were only “very minor” — cuts and scrapes on their paw pads, legs and bellies, mainly, as well as fatigue and heat exhaustion. The bigger challenge, she said, was the frustration of searching for hours and not finding anyone. When the dogs began to get discouraged and lose their motivation to search, handlers had to stage “mock finds” so the dogs could feel successful. Also read | Twenty years on, pandemic gives 9/11 conspiracists fresh impetus “When they train, they don’t search for hours without finding anybody,” she said in a recent phone conversation. “You need to remind the dogs every so often that they do get to win.” Bretagne (pronounced Brittany), a golden retriever who was then 2 years old, arrived the week after the attacks and spent 10 days searching for survivors. She slept in a kennel at the Javits Center alongside her handler, Denise Corliss, an electrical engineer from Texas who had traveled to the city with Texas Task Force 1, one of the 28 teams that form the FEMA National Urban Search and Rescue System. Corliss, 56, said Bretagne, who died in 2016, was the last known living service dog to have been employed by FEMA at ground zero. She brought comfort to rescuers and firefighters, who would approach the dog and pet her. Soon, they’d open up to Corliss, sharing personal stories of the missing friends and colleagues they were searching for. “A gentleman came up and started petting Bretagne and said, ‘You know, I don’t really like dogs,’” she said. “Which was a surprising statement considering he was kneeling down to pet her. I said ‘Oh?’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, my best friend loved dogs; he had a golden retriever himself. My best friend is somewhere out there,’ and he pointed to the pile. It was a tie back to his missing friend.” And that, Fausel said, is what the Museum of the Dog hopes to capture in its new exhibition. “The search and rescue dogs didn’t rescue any people from the pile,” he said. “But I think they somewhat rescued the people who were searching.”

The dogs of 9/11: Their failed searches for life helped sustain it

The TV specials for the Sept. 11 anniversary offer any number of ways to return to hell. There are wrenching interviews with survivors and with those whose loved ones died; uplifting stories of rescues and agonizing stories of those who perished in the attempt; footage of the conflagration, chaos and shock, as seen on morning newscasts and in the ash-blanketed streets; images of the first responders and volunteers digging through wreckage.

A clarification: I actually took those descriptions from this newspaper’s review programming for the 10th anniversary. But they apply just as well this year, for the 20th.

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In documentary after documentary, on cable, streaming and broadcast, you can hear, over and over, the air traffic-control distress calls. You can see, again and again, the stunning footage of an airliner slamming into the north tower of the World Trade Center, captured by a documentary filmmaker accompanying firefighters on a routine call. You can be reminded, time after heartbreaking time, what a beautiful, blue-sky September morning it was.

The interview subjects have aged. Time has passed. The children who fled schools or lost parents that morning are now grown adults. (Two documentaries, on the History Channel and Discovery+, focus on them.) But the story, as told, is mostly the same.

Twenty years later, is there anything still to say about Sept. 11? Of course; it would be unimaginable to simply ignore it. A tougher question is: Is there anything&nbsp;more&nbsp;to say than there was five, 10, 15 years ago?

There is. But actually saying it can be riskier.

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TV’s treatment of Sept. 11 has changed over the years, in bits and pieces. The adrenaline rush of “24” gave way to the moral grayscale of “Homeland.” MSNBC finally ended its grim tradition of replaying the live coverage of the attacks. But the general approach of the memorial specials, tightly focused on honouring the loss and sacrifice of one discrete day, has kept a kind of ritual familiarity.

For 20 years, the refrain has been: Remember, remember, remember. Memory is so ingrained in the language of Sept. 11 — “Never forget” — as to imply that it is obligatory, and sufficient, for future generations merely to remember by revisiting the narrative and imagery of one terrible day, rather than to connect it to the years of history that followed.

But is Sept. 11 simply a day, or is it an era? Was it the beginning of something or a continuation? You can divide most of the anniversary specials between those that focus closely on the day that the towers fell and those that pull back, way back, to look at what emerged from the dust.

There are plenty of the former kind. On National Geographic, the four-part series “9/11: One Day in America” reassembles in granular detail the horrific experience of that morning. (It’s streaming on Hulu — all the programs mentioned here are currently streaming unless otherwise noted.) A special episode of “60 Minutes,” premiering Sept. 12, revisits the stories of firefighters who survived the catastrophe, and those who didn’t.

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Apple TV+’s “9/11: Inside the President’s War Room” interviews George W. Bush and former members of his staff about the decisions and chaos of that morning, with scant reference to any decisions — say, the invasion of Iraq — that followed. And the seven hours of new 9/11 programming on the History Channel include “9/11: Four Flights,” about the aircraft that crashed into the towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, and “9/11: I Was There,” based on amateur video (both premiere on Sept. 11).

These remember-the-day documentaries tend to be heartfelt and reverent; they are often meticulously researched and assembled. (I cannot speak for “Long Island Medium: In Memory of 9/11,” the TLC special, premiering Thursday, that promises to bring families messages from the spirits of their lost loved ones.) They have the benefit of two decades of fact-finding. But for years now, it has been hard for anything to match the immediacy and urgency of “9/11,” the film by Gédéon and Jules Naudet — the brothers whose intended firefighter documentary produced that famous tower-impact shot — which aired on CBS in 2002. (CNN will re-air it on Sunday.)

Focusing on the emotion and heroism of one day, of course, avoids getting ensnared in everything that came after. It sticks to what we can all agree on. It’s safer, in the way that it’s safer to teach the Civil War or Jim Crow as horrors of the past instead of events on a continuum that reaches into the present.

The other approach is to decide that 20 years, a full generation, is long enough to treat the terror attacks as part of a larger historical era.

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Sept. 11 is not only in the past, as you can see in the bloody news from Afghanistan. For viewers who want to unpack how the attacks led to two decades of military entanglements, there’s Netflix’s five-part “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror,” which looks unsparingly at the intelligence failures before Sept. 11 and the mission creep through multiple administrations. Enlighteningly, it includes the voices of Afghan leaders and civilians. Sept. 11, as an epoch, meant upheaval for more than one nation.

But the history of Sept. 11 goes far beyond war and foreign policy. It affected domestic politics, domestic enmities and even American culture.

And two of the anniversary’s most striking documentaries present Sept. 11 as an event that struck at America’s democracy and even its soul.

The “Frontline” special “America After 9/11,” premiering Tuesday on PBS, is driven by a striking video juxtaposition. First, on the Capitol steps the day of the attacks, a chorus of members of Congress, Republican and Democratic, senators and representatives, join to sing “God Bless America.” Two decades later, on the same site, a mob besieges Congress in an attempt to overturn the results of an election.

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It’s a provocative connection, but filmmaker Michael Kirk lays it out economically: The attacks set off a chain of action and changes — military quagmires, suspicion and racism at home, the loss of trust in institutions — that demagogues used to undermine democracy, and that fulfilled Osama bin Laden’s goal of dividing and weakening America.

From the beginning, the special argues, America’s response was driven by paradox: the moral rhetoric of Bush and the strategies of his vice president, Dick Cheney, who said that America would need to work with “the dark side” to survive.

The dark side won, “America After 9/11” argues. It won when specious claims of weapons of mass destruction rationalized war in Iraq; when images of torture emerged from Abu Ghraib prison; when illustrations of Barack Obama as bin Laden circulated; when the media fed hysteria about terror threats; and when the 2016 election was won by a candidate who said, “I think Islam hates us” and used similar rhetoric for people he labelled domestic enemies.

In this light, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — with its racist language and its fantasy of reclaiming America from a shadowy existential threat — was, says former Obama aide Ben Rhodes, “the logical endpoint” of the 9/11 era.

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But the most sweeping — and, I expect, ultimately the most memorable — of this year’s documentaries is Spike Lee’s elegiac, messy and feisty “NYC Epicenters: 9/11-2021½,” airing in four parts on HBO.

As the title suggests, “Epicenters” is only partly about 9/11, and it makes a strong case that the 9/11 era can only be captured with the widest lens. It works backwards, starting from the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus">COVID-19 pandemic</a> and moving — through Black Lives Matter, the 2016 and 2020 elections and more — to its starting point. In Lee’s telling, Sept. 11 is not just a matter of terrorism, but also the opening act to decades of calamity and uproar.

If it seems like a stretch, “Epicenters” soon makes it difficult to see the subject otherwise, drawing connection after connection across the years. There is Rudy Giuliani, “America’s Mayor” in the days after the towers fell, spouting election-hoax fan fiction at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. There is the rash of Islamophobic attacks after Sept. 11, echoing in the xenophobia of the Trump era. There are emergency medical workers suffering from 9/11-related illnesses that loom as preexisting conditions during the pandemic.

Sept. 11, in Lee’s telling, is itself a preexisting condition. It is not a one-time injury but a chronic affliction, and other, pre-preexisting conditions express themselves through it as well. New York came back from it, and, “Epicenters” insists, it will come back from COVID. But in his crowning image, Lee likens that comeback to Marlon Brando’s bloodied stagger at the end of “On the Waterfront.” Each blow leaves a mark.

“Epicenters” uses clips from a lot of films to evoke the city, from “On the Town” to the 1976 remake of “King Kong” to Lee’s own work. Lee’s memory of New York, like many people’s, is a blend of lived experience and fantasy. And sometimes the exaggerated language of film is the only thing that can capture larger-than-life experience; as the series notes, people describe Sept. 11, over and over, as being “like a movie.”

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Lee’s interviews — with hundreds of people, from high elected officials to heavy-equipment operators at ground zero — are warm, emotional, sometimes sparring. He ribs every Boston Red Sox fan he talks to; when his subjects need time to collect themselves, he lets the moments play out. For politicians, he lets the raspberries fly freely (the captions refer to Donald Trump, in the words of the rapper Busta Rhymes, as “President Agent Orange”).

One could argue over which director is most essentially New York. But Lee’s passionate heckler’s breed of New York-ness may be the best suited to this subject. He is loving and critical, impulses that New Yorkers know as synonyms. And his focus on diversity and race helps him find less-heard voices in a much-told story, like those of the Vulcan Society for Black firefighters, or of the Black flight attendant who guiltily recalls “racially profiling” a Saudi passenger after Sept. 11.

Unfortunately, “Epicenters” has made the most news for what you won’t see in it: an extended, bizarre section in the original final episode that gave credence to the conspiracists who theorize that the towers were brought down by a controlled explosion. Lee snipped the entire section, and despite the blunt edit, the shorter final cut, which premieres on Sept. 11, actually flows better.

I could imagine a version of “Epicenters” that still covered the conspiracy theories, not to legitimize them, but as an example of the paranoia that thrives in a country lacking social trust — which Lee rightly deplores when it comes to anti-vaccine theories and the election hoaxes that drove some of the Capitol assailants.

There’s a sobering meta-lesson in the fact that the most artful of this season’s Sept. 11 documentaries became an example of one of the very problems it diagnosed. But at least the resolution shows that criticism can make a difference, and that it’s not too late to look at history seriously and make a change.

The TV specials for the Sept. 11 anniversary offer any number of ways to return to hell. There are wrenching interviews with survivors and with those whose loved ones died; uplifting stories of rescues and agonizing stories of those who perished in the attempt; footage of the conflagration, chaos and shock, as seen on morning newscasts and in the ash-blanketed streets; images of the first responders and volunteers digging through wreckage.

The TV specials for the Sept. 11 anniversary offer any number of ways to return to hell. There are wrenching interviews with survivors and with those whose loved ones died; uplifting stories of rescues and agonizing stories of those who perished in the attempt; footage of the conflagration, chaos and shock, as seen on morning newscasts and in the ash-blanketed streets; images of the first responders and volunteers digging through wreckage. A clarification: I actually took those descriptions from this newspaper’s review programming for the 10th anniversary. But they apply just as well this year, for the 20th. Also read | How 9/11 changed air travel: More security, less privacy In documentary after documentary, on cable, streaming and broadcast, you can hear, over and over, the air traffic-control distress calls. You can see, again and again, the stunning footage of an airliner slamming into the north tower of the World Trade Center, captured by a documentary filmmaker accompanying firefighters on a routine call. You can be reminded, time after heartbreaking time, what a beautiful, blue-sky September morning it was. The interview subjects have aged. Time has passed. The children who fled schools or lost parents that morning are now grown adults. (Two documentaries, on the History Channel and Discovery+, focus on them.) But the story, as told, is mostly the same. Twenty years later, is there anything still to say about Sept. 11? Of course; it would be unimaginable to simply ignore it. A tougher question is: Is there anything more to say than there was five, 10, 15 years ago? There is. But actually saying it can be riskier. Also read | 'Freedom Tower' - the skyscraper symbolising New York's resilience TV’s treatment of Sept. 11 has changed over the years, in bits and pieces. The adrenaline rush of “24” gave way to the moral grayscale of “Homeland.” MSNBC finally ended its grim tradition of replaying the live coverage of the attacks. But the general approach of the memorial specials, tightly focused on honouring the loss and sacrifice of one discrete day, has kept a kind of ritual familiarity. For 20 years, the refrain has been: Remember, remember, remember. Memory is so ingrained in the language of Sept. 11 — “Never forget” — as to imply that it is obligatory, and sufficient, for future generations merely to remember by revisiting the narrative and imagery of one terrible day, rather than to connect it to the years of history that followed. But is Sept. 11 simply a day, or is it an era? Was it the beginning of something or a continuation? You can divide most of the anniversary specials between those that focus closely on the day that the towers fell and those that pull back, way back, to look at what emerged from the dust. There are plenty of the former kind. On National Geographic, the four-part series “9/11: One Day in America” reassembles in granular detail the horrific experience of that morning. (It’s streaming on Hulu — all the programs mentioned here are currently streaming unless otherwise noted.) A special episode of “60 Minutes,” premiering Sept. 12, revisits the stories of firefighters who survived the catastrophe, and those who didn’t. Also read | Twenty years on, pandemic gives 9/11 conspiracists fresh impetus Apple TV+’s “9/11: Inside the President’s War Room” interviews George W. Bush and former members of his staff about the decisions and chaos of that morning, with scant reference to any decisions — say, the invasion of Iraq — that followed. And the seven hours of new 9/11 programming on the History Channel include “9/11: Four Flights,” about the aircraft that crashed into the towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, and “9/11: I Was There,” based on amateur video (both premiere on Sept. 11). These remember-the-day documentaries tend to be heartfelt and reverent; they are often meticulously researched and assembled. (I cannot speak for “Long Island Medium: In Memory of 9/11,” the TLC special, premiering Thursday, that promises to bring families messages from the spirits of their lost loved ones.) They have the benefit of two decades of fact-finding. But for years now, it has been hard for anything to match the immediacy and urgency of “9/11,” the film by Gédéon and Jules Naudet — the brothers whose intended firefighter documentary produced that famous tower-impact shot — which aired on CBS in 2002. (CNN will re-air it on Sunday.) Focusing on the emotion and heroism of one day, of course, avoids getting ensnared in everything that came after. It sticks to what we can all agree on. It’s safer, in the way that it’s safer to teach the Civil War or Jim Crow as horrors of the past instead of events on a continuum that reaches into the present. The other approach is to decide that 20 years, a full generation, is long enough to treat the terror attacks as part of a larger historical era. Also read | 9/11 attacks: US president moves to declassify documents as 20th anniversary approaches Sept. 11 is not only in the past, as you can see in the bloody news from Afghanistan. For viewers who want to unpack how the attacks led to two decades of military entanglements, there’s Netflix’s five-part “Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror,” which looks unsparingly at the intelligence failures before Sept. 11 and the mission creep through multiple administrations. Enlighteningly, it includes the voices of Afghan leaders and civilians. Sept. 11, as an epoch, meant upheaval for more than one nation. But the history of Sept. 11 goes far beyond war and foreign policy. It affected domestic politics, domestic enmities and even American culture. And two of the anniversary’s most striking documentaries present Sept. 11 as an event that struck at America’s democracy and even its soul. The “Frontline” special “America After 9/11,” premiering Tuesday on PBS, is driven by a striking video juxtaposition. First, on the Capitol steps the day of the attacks, a chorus of members of Congress, Republican and Democratic, senators and representatives, join to sing “God Bless America.” Two decades later, on the same site, a mob besieges Congress in an attempt to overturn the results of an election. Also read | Exclusive: Blame for Afghanistan 'lies on President Biden', says 9/11-era NYPD commissioner It’s a provocative connection, but filmmaker Michael Kirk lays it out economically: The attacks set off a chain of action and changes — military quagmires, suspicion and racism at home, the loss of trust in institutions — that demagogues used to undermine democracy, and that fulfilled Osama bin Laden’s goal of dividing and weakening America. From the beginning, the special argues, America’s response was driven by paradox: the moral rhetoric of Bush and the strategies of his vice president, Dick Cheney, who said that America would need to work with “the dark side” to survive. The dark side won, “America After 9/11” argues. It won when specious claims of weapons of mass destruction rationalized war in Iraq; when images of torture emerged from Abu Ghraib prison; when illustrations of Barack Obama as bin Laden circulated; when the media fed hysteria about terror threats; and when the 2016 election was won by a candidate who said, “I think Islam hates us” and used similar rhetoric for people he labelled domestic enemies. In this light, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — with its racist language and its fantasy of reclaiming America from a shadowy existential threat — was, says former Obama aide Ben Rhodes, “the logical endpoint” of the 9/11 era. But the most sweeping — and, I expect, ultimately the most memorable — of this year’s documentaries is Spike Lee’s elegiac, messy and feisty “NYC Epicenters: 9/11-2021½,” airing in four parts on HBO. As the title suggests, “Epicenters” is only partly about 9/11, and it makes a strong case that the 9/11 era can only be captured with the widest lens. It works backwards, starting from the COVID-19 pandemic and moving — through Black Lives Matter, the 2016 and 2020 elections and more — to its starting point. In Lee’s telling, Sept. 11 is not just a matter of terrorism, but also the opening act to decades of calamity and uproar. If it seems like a stretch, “Epicenters” soon makes it difficult to see the subject otherwise, drawing connection after connection across the years. There is Rudy Giuliani, “America’s Mayor” in the days after the towers fell, spouting election-hoax fan fiction at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. There is the rash of Islamophobic attacks after Sept. 11, echoing in the xenophobia of the Trump era. There are emergency medical workers suffering from 9/11-related illnesses that loom as preexisting conditions during the pandemic. Sept. 11, in Lee’s telling, is itself a preexisting condition. It is not a one-time injury but a chronic affliction, and other, pre-preexisting conditions express themselves through it as well. New York came back from it, and, “Epicenters” insists, it will come back from COVID. But in his crowning image, Lee likens that comeback to Marlon Brando’s bloodied stagger at the end of “On the Waterfront.” Each blow leaves a mark. “Epicenters” uses clips from a lot of films to evoke the city, from “On the Town” to the 1976 remake of “King Kong” to Lee’s own work. Lee’s memory of New York, like many people’s, is a blend of lived experience and fantasy. And sometimes the exaggerated language of film is the only thing that can capture larger-than-life experience; as the series notes, people describe Sept. 11, over and over, as being “like a movie.” Also read | Spike Lee re-edits 9-11 documentary featuring conspiracy theorists Lee’s interviews — with hundreds of people, from high elected officials to heavy-equipment operators at ground zero — are warm, emotional, sometimes sparring. He ribs every Boston Red Sox fan he talks to; when his subjects need time to collect themselves, he lets the moments play out. For politicians, he lets the raspberries fly freely (the captions refer to Donald Trump, in the words of the rapper Busta Rhymes, as “President Agent Orange”). One could argue over which director is most essentially New York. But Lee’s passionate heckler’s breed of New York-ness may be the best suited to this subject. He is loving and critical, impulses that New Yorkers know as synonyms. And his focus on diversity and race helps him find less-heard voices in a much-told story, like those of the Vulcan Society for Black firefighters, or of the Black flight attendant who guiltily recalls “racially profiling” a Saudi passenger after Sept. 11. Unfortunately, “Epicenters” has made the most news for what you won’t see in it: an extended, bizarre section in the original final episode that gave credence to the conspiracists who theorize that the towers were brought down by a controlled explosion. Lee snipped the entire section, and despite the blunt edit, the shorter final cut, which premieres on Sept. 11, actually flows better. I could imagine a version of “Epicenters” that still covered the conspiracy theories, not to legitimize them, but as an example of the paranoia that thrives in a country lacking social trust — which Lee rightly deplores when it comes to anti-vaccine theories and the election hoaxes that drove some of the Capitol assailants. There’s a sobering meta-lesson in the fact that the most artful of this season’s Sept. 11 documentaries became an example of one of the very problems it diagnosed. But at least the resolution shows that criticism can make a difference, and that it’s not too late to look at history seriously and make a change.

Is 9/11 a day, or is it an Era?

Ask anyone old enough to remember travel before Sept. 11, 2001, and you're likely to get a gauzy recollection of what flying was like.

There was security screening, but it wasn't anywhere near as intrusive. There were no long checkpoint lines.

Passengers and their families could walk right to the gate together, postponing goodbye hugs until the last possible moment. Overall, an airport experience meant far less stress.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/freedom-tower-the-skyscraper-symbolising-new-yorks-resilience-411055">'Freedom Tower' - the skyscraper symbolising New York's resilience</a>

That all ended when four hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

The worst terror attack on American soil led to increased and sometimes tension-filled security measures in airports across the world, aimed at preventing a repeat of that awful day. The cataclysm has also contributed to other changes large and small that have reshaped the airline industry,&nbsp;and, for consumers, made air travel more stressful than ever.

Two months after the attacks, President George W. Bush signed legislation creating the Transportation Security Administration, a force of federal airport screeners that replaced the private companies that airlines were hiring to handle security. The law required that all checked bags be screened, cockpit doors be reinforced, and more federal air marshals be put on flights.

There has not been another 9/11. Nothing even close. But after that day, flying changed forever.

New threats, privacy concerns

Here's how it unfolded.

Security measures evolved with new threats, and so travellers were asked to take off belts and remove some items from bags for scanning. Things that clearly could be wielded as weapons, like the box-cutters used by the 9/11 hijackers, were banned. After 'shoe bomber'&nbsp;Richard Reid's attempt to take down a flight from Paris to Miami in late 2001, footwear started coming off at security checkpoints.

Each new requirement seemed to make checkpoint lines longer, forcing passengers to arrive at the airport earlier if they wanted to make their flights. To many travellers, other rules were more mystifying, such as limits on liquids because the wrong ones could possibly be used to concoct a bomb.

"It's a much bigger hassle than it was before 9/11,&nbsp;much bigger,&nbsp;but we have gotten used to it,"&nbsp;Ronald Briggs said as he and his wife, Jeanne, waited at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport for a flight to London last month. The north Texas retirees, who traveled frequently before the pandemic, said they are more worried about <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/coronavirus">COVID-19</a> than terrorism.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/twenty-years-on-pandemic-gives-911-conspiracists-fresh-impetus-411061">Twenty years on, pandemic gives 9/11 conspiracists fresh impetus</a>

"The point about taking shoes off because of one incident on a plane seems somewhat on the extreme side," Ronald Briggs said, "but the PreCheck works pretty smoothly, and I've learned to use a plastic belt so I don't have to take it off."&nbsp;

The long lines created by post-attack measures gave rise to the PreCheck and Global Entry "trusted-traveler programs" in which people who pay a fee and provide certain information about themselves pass through checkpoints without removing shoes and jackets or taking laptops out of their bag.

But that convenience has come at a cost: privacy.

On its application and in brief interviews, PreCheck asks people about basic information like work history and where they have lived, and they give a fingerprint and agree to a criminal-records check. Privacy advocates are particularly concerned about ideas that TSA has floated to also examine social media postings (the agency's top official says that has been dropped), press reports about people, location data and information from data brokers including how applicants spend their money.

"It's far from clear that that has any relationship to aviation security,"&nbsp;says Jay Stanley, a privacy expert at the American Civil Liberties Union.

More than 10 million people have enrolled in PreCheck. TSA wants to raise that to 25 million.

The goal is to let TSA officers spend more time on passengers considered to be a bigger risk. As the country marks the 20th anniversary of the attacks, the TSA's work to expand PreCheck is unfolding in a way privacy advocates worry could put people's information at more risk.

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/blame-for-afghanistan-lies-on-president-biden-says-911-era-nypd-commissioner-410532">Exclusive: Blame for Afghanistan 'lies on President Biden', says 9/11-era NYPD commissioner&nbsp;</a>

At the direction of Congress, the TSA will expand the use of private vendors to gather information from PreCheck applicants. It currently uses a company called Idemia, and plans by the end of the year to add two more ? Telos Identity Management Solutions and Clear Secure Inc.

Clear, which recently went public, plans to use PreCheck enrollment to boost membership in its own identity-verification product by bundling the two offerings. That will make Clear's own product more valuable to its customers, which include sports stadiums and concert promoters.

"They are really trying to increase their market share by collecting quite a lot of very sensitive data on as many people as they can get their hands on. That strikes a lot of alarm bells for me,"&nbsp;says India McKinney, director of federal affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for digital rights.

TSA Administrator David Pekoske, though, sees Clear's strategy as helping TSA. Says Pekoske: "We have allowed the vendors to bundle their offerings together with the idea that would be an incentive for people to sign up for the trusted-traveler programs." The TSA is testing the use of kiosks equipped with facial-recognition technology to check photo IDs and boarding passes rather than having an officer do it. Critics say facial-recognition technology makes errors, especially on people of color.

Also read |&nbsp;​​​​​​​<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/911-attacks-us-president-moves-to-declassify-documents-as-20th-anniversary-approaches-410579">9/11 attacks: US president moves to declassify documents as 20th anniversary approaches</a>

TSA officials told privacy advocates earlier this year that those kiosks will also pull photos taken when the traveler applied for PreCheck, McKinney says. That concerns her because it would mean connecting the kiosks to the internet&nbsp;(TSA says that much is true)&nbsp;and potentially exposing the information to hackers.

"They are totally focusing on the convenience factor," McKinney says, "and they are not focusing on the privacy and security factors."

Security theatre&nbsp;

Despite the trauma that led to its creation, and the intense desire to avoid another 9/11, the TSA itself has frequently been the subject of questions about its methods, ideas and effectiveness.

Flight attendants and air marshals were outraged when the agency proposed in 2013 to let passengers carry folding pocket knives and other long-banned items on planes again. The agency dropped the idea. And after another outcry, the TSA removed full-body scanners that produced realistic-looking images that some travelers compared to virtual strip searches. They were replaced by other machines that caused fewer privacy and health objections. Pat-downs of travelers are a constant complaint.

In 2015, a published report said TSA officers failed 95 per cent of the time to detect weapons or explosive material carried by undercover inspectors. Members of Congress who received a classified briefing raised their concerns to Pekoske, with one lawmaker saying that TSA "is broken badly."

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/former-commissioner-of-new-york-city-police-dept-bernard-kerik-speaks-on-911-attacks-410624/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Critics, including former TSA officers, have derided the agency as "security theater"&nbsp;that gives a false impression of safeguarding the traveling public. Pekoske dismisses that notion by pointing to the huge number of guns seized at airport checkpoints&nbsp;(more than 3,200 last year, 83 per cent&nbsp;of them loaded)&nbsp;instead of making it onto planes.

Pekoske also ticked off other TSA tasks, including vetting passengers, screening checked bags with 3-D technology, inspecting cargo and putting federal air marshals on flights.

"There is an awful lot there that people don't see,"&nbsp;Pekoske says. "Rest assured: This is not security theater. It's real security."

Many independent experts agree with Pekoske's assessment, though they usually see areas where the TSA must improve.

"TSA is an effective deterrent against most attacks,"&nbsp;says Jeffrey Price, who teaches aviation security at Metropolitan State University of Denver and has co-authored books on the subject. "If it's security theater, like some critics say, it's pretty good security theater because since 9/11 we haven't had a successful attack against aviation."

This summer, an average of nearly 2 million people per day have flowed through TSA checkpoints. On weekends and holidays they can be teeming with stressed-out travelers. During the middle of the week, even at big airports like DFW, they are less crowded; they hum rather than roar. Most travelers accept any inconvenience as the price of security in an uncertain world.

Travel "is getting harder and harder, and I don't think it's just my age,"&nbsp;said Paula Gathings, who taught school in Arkansas for many years and was waiting for a flight to Qatar and then another to Kenya, where she will spend the next several months teaching. She blames the difficulty of travel on the pandemic, not the security apparatus.

"They are there for my security. They aren't there to hassle me," Gathings said of TSA screeners and airport police. "Every time somebody asks me to do something, I can see the reason for it. Maybe it's the schoolteacher in me."

Threats from within

In 2015, a Russian airliner crashed shortly after taking off from Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. American and British officials suspected it was brought down by a bomb.

It was, however, the exception rather than the rule. Even outside the United States, terror attacks on aviation since Sept. 11, 2001 have been rare. Is that because of effective security;&nbsp;Proving a negative, or even attributing it directly to a certain flavor of prevention, is always a dicey exercise.

And then there are the inside jobs.

— In 2016, a bomb ripped a hole in a Daallo Airlines plane shortly after takeoff, killing the bomber but 80 other passengers and crew survived. Somali authorities released video from Mogadishu’s airport that they said showed the man being handed&nbsp;a laptop containing the bomb.

— In 2018, a Delta Air Lines baggage handler in Atlanta was convicted of using his security pass to smuggle more than 100 guns on flights to New York.

— The following year, an American Airlines mechanic with Islamic State videos on his phone pleaded guilty to sabotaging a plane full of passengers by crippling a system that measures speed and altitude. Pilots aborted the flight during takeoff in Miami.

Those incidents highlight a threat that TSA needs to worry about — people who work for airlines or airports and have security clearance that lets them avoid regular screening. Pekoske says TSA is improving its oversight of the insider threat.

“All those folks that have a (security) badge, you’re right, many do have unescorted access throughout an airport, but they also go through a very rigorous vetting process before they are even hired,” Pekoske says. Those workers are typically reviewed every few years, but he says TSA is rolling out a system that will trigger immediate alerts based on law enforcement information.

With all the different ways that deadly chaos could happen on airplanes after 9/11, the fact remains: Most of the time, it hasn’t. The act of getting on a metal machine and rising into the air to travel quickly across states and countries and oceans remains a central part of the 21st-century human experience, arduous though it may be.

And while the post-9/11 global airport security apparatus has grown to what some consider unreasonable proportions, it will never neutralize all threats — or even be able to enforce the rules it has written. Just ask Nathan Dudney, a sales executive for a sporting goods manufacturer in Nashville who says he occasionally forgets about ammunition in his carry-on bag.

Sometimes it’s discovered, he says, and sometimes not. He understands.

“You can’t catch everything,” Dudney says. “They’re doing things to the best of their ability.”

Ask anyone old enough to remember travel before Sept. 11, 2001, and you're likely to get a gauzy recollection of what flying was like. There was security screening, but it wasn't anywhere near as intrusive.

Ask anyone old enough to remember travel before Sept. 11, 2001, and you're likely to get a gauzy recollection of what flying was like. There was security screening, but it wasn't anywhere near as intrusive. There were no long checkpoint lines. Passengers and their families could walk right to the gate together, postponing goodbye hugs until the last possible moment. Overall, an airport experience meant far less stress. Also read | 'Freedom Tower' - the skyscraper symbolising New York's resilience That all ended when four hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. The worst terror attack on American soil led to increased and sometimes tension-filled security measures in airports across the world, aimed at preventing a repeat of that awful day. The cataclysm has also contributed to other changes large and small that have reshaped the airline industry, and, for consumers, made air travel more stressful than ever. Two months after the attacks, President George W. Bush signed legislation creating the Transportation Security Administration, a force of federal airport screeners that replaced the private companies that airlines were hiring to handle security. The law required that all checked bags be screened, cockpit doors be reinforced, and more federal air marshals be put on flights. There has not been another 9/11. Nothing even close. But after that day, flying changed forever. New threats, privacy concerns Here's how it unfolded. Security measures evolved with new threats, and so travellers were asked to take off belts and remove some items from bags for scanning. Things that clearly could be wielded as weapons, like the box-cutters used by the 9/11 hijackers, were banned. After 'shoe bomber' Richard Reid's attempt to take down a flight from Paris to Miami in late 2001, footwear started coming off at security checkpoints. Each new requirement seemed to make checkpoint lines longer, forcing passengers to arrive at the airport earlier if they wanted to make their flights. To many travellers, other rules were more mystifying, such as limits on liquids because the wrong ones could possibly be used to concoct a bomb. "It's a much bigger hassle than it was before 9/11, much bigger, but we have gotten used to it," Ronald Briggs said as he and his wife, Jeanne, waited at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport for a flight to London last month. The north Texas retirees, who traveled frequently before the pandemic, said they are more worried about COVID-19 than terrorism. Also read | Twenty years on, pandemic gives 9/11 conspiracists fresh impetus "The point about taking shoes off because of one incident on a plane seems somewhat on the extreme side," Ronald Briggs said, "but the PreCheck works pretty smoothly, and I've learned to use a plastic belt so I don't have to take it off." The long lines created by post-attack measures gave rise to the PreCheck and Global Entry "trusted-traveler programs" in which people who pay a fee and provide certain information about themselves pass through checkpoints without removing shoes and jackets or taking laptops out of their bag. But that convenience has come at a cost: privacy. On its application and in brief interviews, PreCheck asks people about basic information like work history and where they have lived, and they give a fingerprint and agree to a criminal-records check. Privacy advocates are particularly concerned about ideas that TSA has floated to also examine social media postings (the agency's top official says that has been dropped), press reports about people, location data and information from data brokers including how applicants spend their money. "It's far from clear that that has any relationship to aviation security," says Jay Stanley, a privacy expert at the American Civil Liberties Union. More than 10 million people have enrolled in PreCheck. TSA wants to raise that to 25 million. The goal is to let TSA officers spend more time on passengers considered to be a bigger risk. As the country marks the 20th anniversary of the attacks, the TSA's work to expand PreCheck is unfolding in a way privacy advocates worry could put people's information at more risk. Also read | Exclusive: Blame for Afghanistan 'lies on President Biden', says 9/11-era NYPD commissioner At the direction of Congress, the TSA will expand the use of private vendors to gather information from PreCheck applicants. It currently uses a company called Idemia, and plans by the end of the year to add two more ? Telos Identity Management Solutions and Clear Secure Inc. Clear, which recently went public, plans to use PreCheck enrollment to boost membership in its own identity-verification product by bundling the two offerings. That will make Clear's own product more valuable to its customers, which include sports stadiums and concert promoters. "They are really trying to increase their market share by collecting quite a lot of very sensitive data on as many people as they can get their hands on. That strikes a lot of alarm bells for me," says India McKinney, director of federal affairs for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for digital rights. TSA Administrator David Pekoske, though, sees Clear's strategy as helping TSA. Says Pekoske: "We have allowed the vendors to bundle their offerings together with the idea that would be an incentive for people to sign up for the trusted-traveler programs." The TSA is testing the use of kiosks equipped with facial-recognition technology to check photo IDs and boarding passes rather than having an officer do it. Critics say facial-recognition technology makes errors, especially on people of color. Also read | 9/11 attacks: US president moves to declassify documents as 20th anniversary approaches TSA officials told privacy advocates earlier this year that those kiosks will also pull photos taken when the traveler applied for PreCheck, McKinney says. That concerns her because it would mean connecting the kiosks to the internet (TSA says that much is true) and potentially exposing the information to hackers. "They are totally focusing on the convenience factor," McKinney says, "and they are not focusing on the privacy and security factors." Security theatre Despite the trauma that led to its creation, and the intense desire to avoid another 9/11, the TSA itself has frequently been the subject of questions about its methods, ideas and effectiveness. Flight attendants and air marshals were outraged when the agency proposed in 2013 to let passengers carry folding pocket knives and other long-banned items on planes again. The agency dropped the idea. And after another outcry, the TSA removed full-body scanners that produced realistic-looking images that some travelers compared to virtual strip searches. They were replaced by other machines that caused fewer privacy and health objections. Pat-downs of travelers are a constant complaint. In 2015, a published report said TSA officers failed 95 per cent of the time to detect weapons or explosive material carried by undercover inspectors. Members of Congress who received a classified briefing raised their concerns to Pekoske, with one lawmaker saying that TSA "is broken badly." Critics, including former TSA officers, have derided the agency as "security theater" that gives a false impression of safeguarding the traveling public. Pekoske dismisses that notion by pointing to the huge number of guns seized at airport checkpoints (more than 3,200 last year, 83 per cent of them loaded) instead of making it onto planes. Pekoske also ticked off other TSA tasks, including vetting passengers, screening checked bags with 3-D technology, inspecting cargo and putting federal air marshals on flights. "There is an awful lot there that people don't see," Pekoske says. "Rest assured: This is not security theater. It's real security." Many independent experts agree with Pekoske's assessment, though they usually see areas where the TSA must improve. "TSA is an effective deterrent against most attacks," says Jeffrey Price, who teaches aviation security at Metropolitan State University of Denver and has co-authored books on the subject. "If it's security theater, like some critics say, it's pretty good security theater because since 9/11 we haven't had a successful attack against aviation." This summer, an average of nearly 2 million people per day have flowed through TSA checkpoints. On weekends and holidays they can be teeming with stressed-out travelers. During the middle of the week, even at big airports like DFW, they are less crowded; they hum rather than roar. Most travelers accept any inconvenience as the price of security in an uncertain world. Travel "is getting harder and harder, and I don't think it's just my age," said Paula Gathings, who taught school in Arkansas for many years and was waiting for a flight to Qatar and then another to Kenya, where she will spend the next several months teaching. She blames the difficulty of travel on the pandemic, not the security apparatus. "They are there for my security. They aren't there to hassle me," Gathings said of TSA screeners and airport police. "Every time somebody asks me to do something, I can see the reason for it. Maybe it's the schoolteacher in me." Threats from within In 2015, a Russian airliner crashed shortly after taking off from Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. American and British officials suspected it was brought down by a bomb. It was, however, the exception rather than the rule. Even outside the United States, terror attacks on aviation since Sept. 11, 2001 have been rare. Is that because of effective security; Proving a negative, or even attributing it directly to a certain flavor of prevention, is always a dicey exercise. And then there are the inside jobs. — In 2016, a bomb ripped a hole in a Daallo Airlines plane shortly after takeoff, killing the bomber but 80 other passengers and crew survived. Somali authorities released video from Mogadishu’s airport that they said showed the man being handed a laptop containing the bomb. — In 2018, a Delta Air Lines baggage handler in Atlanta was convicted of using his security pass to smuggle more than 100 guns on flights to New York. — The following year, an American Airlines mechanic with Islamic State videos on his phone pleaded guilty to sabotaging a plane full of passengers by crippling a system that measures speed and altitude. Pilots aborted the flight during takeoff in Miami. Those incidents highlight a threat that TSA needs to worry about — people who work for airlines or airports and have security clearance that lets them avoid regular screening. Pekoske says TSA is improving its oversight of the insider threat. “All those folks that have a (security) badge, you’re right, many do have unescorted access throughout an airport, but they also go through a very rigorous vetting process before they are even hired,” Pekoske says. Those workers are typically reviewed every few years, but he says TSA is rolling out a system that will trigger immediate alerts based on law enforcement information. With all the different ways that deadly chaos could happen on airplanes after 9/11, the fact remains: Most of the time, it hasn’t. The act of getting on a metal machine and rising into the air to travel quickly across states and countries and oceans remains a central part of the 21st-century human experience, arduous though it may be. And while the post-9/11 global airport security apparatus has grown to what some consider unreasonable proportions, it will never neutralize all threats — or even be able to enforce the rules it has written. Just ask Nathan Dudney, a sales executive for a sporting goods manufacturer in Nashville who says he occasionally forgets about ammunition in his carry-on bag. Sometimes it’s discovered, he says, and sometimes not. He understands. “You can’t catch everything,” Dudney says. “They’re doing things to the best of their ability.”

How 9/11 changed air travel: More security, less privacy

Acclaimed film director Spike Lee is making a documentary for HBO charting New York's recovery from the 9/11 terror attacks through to the coronavirus pandemic, WarnerMedia announced Monday.

The multi-part documentary will be released to commemorate the 20th anniversary later this year of the coordinated Al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center that killed almost 3,000 people.

"With over 200 interviews, we dig deep into what makes NYC the greatest city on this God's earth and also the diverse citizens who make it so," said Lee, who is producing and directing the project.

WarnerMedia said in a statement the documentary would offer "an unprecedented, sweeping portrait of New Yorkers as they rebuild and rebound, from a devastating terrorist attack through the ongoing global pandemic."

It added that the documentary will be released "later this year," without specifying a date.

It will air on HBO and its streaming service HBO Max.

Lee earlier made a documentary for HBO on Hurricane Katrina. "When the Levees Broke" was released in 2006.

"(W)e treasure Spike's singular capacity to chronicle and pay tribute to the human toll of these historic events while bearing profound witness to the strength and resiliency of the human spirit," said Lisa Heller and Nancy Abraham, HBO's co-heads of documentary films.

Acclaimed film director Spike Lee is making a documentary for HBO charting New York's recovery from the 9/11 terror attacks through to the coronavirus pandemic, WarnerMedia announced Monday.

Acclaimed film director Spike Lee is making a documentary for HBO charting New York's recovery from the 9/11 terror attacks through to the coronavirus pandemic, WarnerMedia announced Monday. The multi-part documentary will be released to commemorate the 20th anniversary later this year of the coordinated Al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center that killed almost 3,000 people. "With over 200 interviews, we dig deep into what makes NYC the greatest city on this God's earth and also the diverse citizens who make it so," said Lee, who is producing and directing the project. WarnerMedia said in a statement the documentary would offer "an unprecedented, sweeping portrait of New Yorkers as they rebuild and rebound, from a devastating terrorist attack through the ongoing global pandemic." It added that the documentary will be released "later this year," without specifying a date. It will air on HBO and its streaming service HBO Max. Lee earlier made a documentary for HBO on Hurricane Katrina. "When the Levees Broke" was released in 2006. "(W)e treasure Spike's singular capacity to chronicle and pay tribute to the human toll of these historic events while bearing profound witness to the strength and resiliency of the human spirit," said Lisa Heller and Nancy Abraham, HBO's co-heads of documentary films.

Spike Lee to make HBO documentary on New York for 9/11 anniversary

The United States on Friday marks the 19th anniversary of the shocking 9/11 attack&nbsp;that was orchestrated by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

On September 11, 2001,&nbsp;19 men hijacked 4 fuel-loaded US commercial airplanes bound for west coast destinations. The operation was planned by&nbsp;Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Also see:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/how-rebels-non-state-actors-have-enhanced-strike-capabilities-after-911-attack-250029">In pics- How militants, terrorists have enhanced strike capabilities post 9/11</a>

American Airlines Boeing 767 loaded with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. 2,753 died after the two American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 planes slammed into the twin towers.&nbsp;

US Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011. FBI, CIA, and Pakistani intelligence worked together and&nbsp;captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003 from a house outside Islamabad.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-president-donald-trump-confirms-death-of-al-qaeda-heir-hamza-bin-laden-249686">US President Donald Trump confirms death of al-Qaeda heir Hamza bin Laden</a>

The present chief of&nbsp;al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri hasn't achieved the household notoriety that&nbsp;bin Laden had.

Al-Qaeda is pursuing a strategy of silently rebuilding and forging alliances with regional groups that&nbsp;maintains affiliations across Africa, West Asia, and South Asia.

According to the Center&nbsp;of International Security and Cooperation, the group's leadership is based in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As of 2018,&nbsp;it had anywhere between 32 thousand to 44 thousand members.&nbsp;Most fighters are believed to be in Africa.

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There could be 5,000 fighters in Libya, 4000 in Yemen,&nbsp;and at least 7000 in Somalia.&nbsp;At least 10 thousand fighters could be operating out of Syria.

The Council of Foreign Relations claims that the&nbsp;al Qaeda&nbsp;and its affiliates are active in Russia and the Indian subcontinent too.

Ayman al-Zawahiri has been able to prevent defections of senior leaders.&nbsp;This includes names like Saif al-Adel.&nbsp;A former Egyptian military colonel and explosives expert.

And Abu Mohammed al-Masri&nbsp;who masterminded the 1998 twin truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

As per the US,&nbsp;al-Zawahiri&nbsp;has a threat.&nbsp;America has placed a 25 million dollar bounty for his head but he has been absent for months leading many to speculate that he might be dead or incapacitated.&nbsp;

He has made only one appearance this year in a year to refute atheism.&nbsp;

The al-Qaeda has even tried to exploit the pandemic&nbsp;as well as the race protests in the United States. But the efforts failed to gain traction.

Last year, the US&nbsp;had claimed that the son of Osama bin laden, hamza, died in an operation.&nbsp;

Without a clear line of leadership,&nbsp;the future of al-Qaeda looks uncertain.

The United States on Friday marks the 19th anniversary of the shocking 9/11 attack that was orchestrated by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. On September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked 4 fuel-loaded US commercial airplanes bound for west coast destinations.

The United States on Friday marks the 19th anniversary of the shocking 9/11 attack that was orchestrated by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. On September 11, 2001, 19 men hijacked 4 fuel-loaded US commercial airplanes bound for west coast destinations. The operation was planned by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Also see: In pics- How militants, terrorists have enhanced strike capabilities post 9/11 American Airlines Boeing 767 loaded with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. 2,753 died after the two American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 planes slammed into the twin towers. US Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan in 2011. FBI, CIA, and Pakistani intelligence worked together and captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in 2003 from a house outside Islamabad. Also read: US President Donald Trump confirms death of al-Qaeda heir Hamza bin Laden The present chief of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri hasn't achieved the household notoriety that bin Laden had. Al-Qaeda is pursuing a strategy of silently rebuilding and forging alliances with regional groups that maintains affiliations across Africa, West Asia, and South Asia. According to the Center of International Security and Cooperation, the group's leadership is based in Afghanistan and Pakistan. As of 2018, it had anywhere between 32 thousand to 44 thousand members. Most fighters are believed to be in Africa. × There could be 5,000 fighters in Libya, 4000 in Yemen, and at least 7000 in Somalia. At least 10 thousand fighters could be operating out of Syria. The Council of Foreign Relations claims that the al Qaeda and its affiliates are active in Russia and the Indian subcontinent too. Ayman al-Zawahiri has been able to prevent defections of senior leaders. This includes names like Saif al-Adel. A former Egyptian military colonel and explosives expert. And Abu Mohammed al-Masri who masterminded the 1998 twin truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. As per the US, al-Zawahiri has a threat. America has placed a 25 million dollar bounty for his head but he has been absent for months leading many to speculate that he might be dead or incapacitated. He has made only one appearance this year in a year to refute atheism. The al-Qaeda has even tried to exploit the pandemic as well as the race protests in the United States. But the efforts failed to gain traction. Last year, the US had claimed that the son of Osama bin laden, hamza, died in an operation. Without a clear line of leadership, the future of al-Qaeda looks uncertain.

Al-Qaeda confronting an uncertain future 19 years after 9/11 attack

US to mark 18th anniversary of the September 11 attacks

Jacquelin Febrillet was 26 years old on September 11, 2001, when jihadist hijackers flew two passenger jets into the World Trade Center just two blocks from where she worked.

Fifteen years after the attacks that day, Febrillet, by then a mother of three, was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. The likely cause: a cloud of toxic ash that engulfed her.

"I was there (on) 9/11 For years I have been working down there every day since 9/11. We were never told that something could happen," she says.

Unlike Febrillet, Richard Fahrer, then 19, wasn't in the area on 9/11, but he regularly worked as a land surveyor between 2001 and 2003 in south Manhattan, where the Twin Towers came crashing down.

Eighteen months ago, the young father, now 37, was diagnosed with aggressive colon cancer, a disease that usually affects older men and which there is no history of in his family.

Febrillet and Fahrer represent a growing category of patients who were living or working close to the World Trade Center in the wake of the attacks, which killed almost 3,000 people.

They were not among the thousands of emergency personnel who rushed to the site or who spent months clearing debris at Ground Zero, but their health is being similarly affected.

As the 18th anniversary of the attacks approaches, New York continues to count the number of people who have developed cancer or other serious illnesses related to the toxic cloud that hovered over Manhattan for several weeks.

'People are dying'&nbsp;

The 9/11 attacks released unprecedented amounts of chemicals into the air, including dioxins, asbestos, and other carcinogenic substances.

Firefighters, other first responders, and volunteers who helped with the months-long clean-up were the first to be affected. Studies found they faced an increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Ten thousand of them have been diagnosed with cancer by the World Trade Center Health Program, a federal treatment program helping survivors.

At the end of June this year, 21,000 people not considered first responders were also in the program twice as many as in June 2016. Of these, almost 4,000 have cancer, the most common being prostate, breast, and skin.

Febrillet, now 44, is one of them. She recalls that the message at the time was to get the city back to normal as quickly as possible.

"People were just going about their business a few days later. But look at what happened a few years later, people are dying," says Febrillet, who also lived close to Ground Zero.

Fahrer, too, laments that city officials did not do more to protect residents and office staff in the vicinity.

"My wife asks me, 'Did terrorists cause your cancer?' I can't say 100 percent, but I do know there could have been better efforts to limit the exposure of healthy adults from entering into the disaster area," he says.

Compensation fund&nbsp;

Health experts say it is impossible to pinpoint exactly the cause of cancer in every patient, but note that there is a clear correlation between the rate and exposure to toxic debris.

Several studies have shown that the cancer rate "has increased between 10 and 30 percent" among people who were exposed compared to those who weren't, David Prezant, New York fire department chief medical officer, told AFP. &nbsp; &nbsp;

The rate is expected to increase further, he said, as exposed people get older. The risk of cancer increases with age and some cancers, including lung, can take 20 to 30 years to develop, Prezant added.

It is because of this that President Donald Trump signed a bill in July that extends a deadline for victims to file claims for compensation from December 2020 to 2090.

The Victim Compensation Fund will be regularly topped up after exhausting its initial budget of $7.3 billion. The average compensation per patient is $240,000, or $682,000 for a deceased person.

Lawyer Matthew Baione, who represents Fahrer and Febrillet in their pursuit of claims, said the extension recognized that it was appropriate to cover someone "who was a baby during the attacks for the rest of their life."

"We have lost so many people, so many friends are sick," says Febrillet

"You get to a point where you are not asking, 'Have you seen so and so, I wonder how she is doing, is she retired?'

"Instead you are asking, 'So how is the surgery, how is the treatment going?' We are so young, this shouldn't be happening."

Jacquelin Febrillet was 26 years old on September 11, 2001, when jihadist hijackers flew two passenger jets into the World Trade Center just two blocks from where she worked.

Jacquelin Febrillet was 26 years old on September 11, 2001, when jihadist hijackers flew two passenger jets into the World Trade Center just two blocks from where she worked. Fifteen years after the attacks that day, Febrillet, by then a mother of three, was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. The likely cause: a cloud of toxic ash that engulfed her. "I was there (on) 9/11 For years I have been working down there every day since 9/11. We were never told that something could happen," she says. Unlike Febrillet, Richard Fahrer, then 19, wasn't in the area on 9/11, but he regularly worked as a land surveyor between 2001 and 2003 in south Manhattan, where the Twin Towers came crashing down. Eighteen months ago, the young father, now 37, was diagnosed with aggressive colon cancer, a disease that usually affects older men and which there is no history of in his family. Febrillet and Fahrer represent a growing category of patients who were living or working close to the World Trade Center in the wake of the attacks, which killed almost 3,000 people. They were not among the thousands of emergency personnel who rushed to the site or who spent months clearing debris at Ground Zero, but their health is being similarly affected. As the 18th anniversary of the attacks approaches, New York continues to count the number of people who have developed cancer or other serious illnesses related to the toxic cloud that hovered over Manhattan for several weeks. 'People are dying' The 9/11 attacks released unprecedented amounts of chemicals into the air, including dioxins, asbestos, and other carcinogenic substances. Firefighters, other first responders, and volunteers who helped with the months-long clean-up were the first to be affected. Studies found they faced an increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Ten thousand of them have been diagnosed with cancer by the World Trade Center Health Program, a federal treatment program helping survivors. At the end of June this year, 21,000 people not considered first responders were also in the program twice as many as in June 2016. Of these, almost 4,000 have cancer, the most common being prostate, breast, and skin. Febrillet, now 44, is one of them. She recalls that the message at the time was to get the city back to normal as quickly as possible. "People were just going about their business a few days later. But look at what happened a few years later, people are dying," says Febrillet, who also lived close to Ground Zero. Fahrer, too, laments that city officials did not do more to protect residents and office staff in the vicinity. "My wife asks me, 'Did terrorists cause your cancer?' I can't say 100 percent, but I do know there could have been better efforts to limit the exposure of healthy adults from entering into the disaster area," he says. Compensation fund Health experts say it is impossible to pinpoint exactly the cause of cancer in every patient, but note that there is a clear correlation between the rate and exposure to toxic debris. Several studies have shown that the cancer rate "has increased between 10 and 30 percent" among people who were exposed compared to those who weren't, David Prezant, New York fire department chief medical officer, told AFP. The rate is expected to increase further, he said, as exposed people get older. The risk of cancer increases with age and some cancers, including lung, can take 20 to 30 years to develop, Prezant added. It is because of this that President Donald Trump signed a bill in July that extends a deadline for victims to file claims for compensation from December 2020 to 2090. The Victim Compensation Fund will be regularly topped up after exhausting its initial budget of $7.3 billion. The average compensation per patient is $240,000, or $682,000 for a deceased person. Lawyer Matthew Baione, who represents Fahrer and Febrillet in their pursuit of claims, said the extension recognized that it was appropriate to cover someone "who was a baby during the attacks for the rest of their life." "We have lost so many people, so many friends are sick," says Febrillet "You get to a point where you are not asking, 'Have you seen so and so, I wonder how she is doing, is she retired?' "Instead you are asking, 'So how is the surgery, how is the treatment going?' We are so young, this shouldn't be happening."

18 years later, cancer cases linger over 9/11 anniversary

By Christian Taylor

Al-Qaeda has recruited an estimated 40,000 fighters since September&nbsp;11, 2001, when the Osama bin Laden-led extremist group attacked the United States, according to the not-for-profit Council on Foreign Relations.

Despite a United States-led global “war on terror” that has cost $5.9 trillion, killed an estimated 480,000 to 507,000 people and assassinated bin Laden, al-Qaida has grown and spread since 9/11, expanding from rural Afghanistan into North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, the Gulf States, the Middle East and Central Asia.

In those places, Al-Qaeda has developed new political influence – in some areas even supplanting the local government.

So how does a religious extremist group with fewer than a hundred members in September 2001 become a transnational terror organisation, even as the world’s biggest military has targeted it for elimination?

According to my dissertation research on the resiliency of Al-Qaeda and the work of other scholars, the US “war on terror” was the catalyst for Al-Qaeda’s growth.

Bin Laden and the ‘war on terror’

Al-Qaeda was founded in Afghanistan in 1988 in response to the Soviet invasion of that country.

For decades, it was a small, weak and uninspiring movement. Bin Laden sought to raise an Islamic coalition of forces to establish a caliphate – an Islamic state governed with strict Islamic law – across the Muslim world. But as late as 1996 he had just 30 fighters willing to die for the cause.

For years, bin Laden tried to merge with such extremist groups as Egypt’s Ibn al-Khattab and the Libyan Islamic Fighting group, hoping to create a global Islamist movement.

These organisations rejected bin Laden’s overtures. These disparate groups lacked a common enemy that could unite them in al-Qaeda’s fight for an Islamic caliphate.

So bin Laden shifted his strategy. He decided to make the United States – a country most Islamic extremist groups see as the enemy of Islam – his main target.

In 1998 Al-Qaeda waged successful attacks on the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. In 2000, it bombed the USS Cole, a military ship refuelling in a Yemen harbour, killing 17 sailors.

Bin Laden hoped the US would respond with a military invasion into Muslim majority territory, triggering a holy war that would put al-Qaida at the forefront of the fight against these unholy invaders.

After Al-Qaeda operatives flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 2,977 people, bin Laden got his wish. The United States invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Eighteen months later, it invaded Iraq.

How Al-Qaeda grew

Islamic groups and individual extremists flocked to bin Laden’s cause after 9/11. Al-Qaeda became the nucleus of a global violent Islamist movement, with affiliates across the Middle East and Africa swearing their allegiance.

At the same time, the war in Afghanistan was decimating Al-Qaeda’s core operations.

Leaders were killed by drone strikes or driven into hiding. The Bush administration claimed killing 75 per cent of Al-Qaeda leadership. Bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders sought refuge in places like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan and Yemen – remote areas outside the easy reach of US ground forces.

To evade US detection, Al-Qaeda had to limit communication between its newly decentralised fronts. That meant the group’s global leadership had to have autonomy to operate relatively independently.

Bin Laden expected Al-Qaeda affiliates to adhere to certain core values, strategies and, of course, pursue the objective of establishing an Islamic caliphate.

But newly minted regional al-Qaida leaders – people like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, Ahmed Abdi Godane in Somalia and Nasir al-Wuhayshi in Yemen – enjoyed enough autonomy to pursue their own agendas in these unstable places.

Al-Qaeda Iraq, al-Shabaab and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as their groups came to be known, embedded themselves in the local political scene. They began building credibility, establishing alliances and recruiting fighters.

By 2015, when bin Laden was killed, al-Qaida was a network of regional caliphates. Today its territory spans from Afghanistan and Pakistan to North Africa, the Middle East and beyond.

Manipulation of a sectarian divide

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, headquartered in Yemen, is a case study in how the group now wields its power more locally.

Yemen has been in civil war since 2015, when a Houthi Shiite armed group declared war against the country’s Sunni Muslim government.

Although this conflict appears sectarian in nature, the Yemen scholar Marieke Brandt argues it is largely about political power – namely, the Yemeni government’s longstanding neglect of the Houthi minority, who come from northern Yemen.

Nonetheless, Al-Qaeda – a Sunni terror group – saw political opportunity in Yemen’s civil war.

The group has played up religious divisions in the civil war. Using its Arabic magazine, martyrdom videos, poetry and popular songs, Al-Qaeda has endeared itself to the local Sunni people and Yemen’s powerful Sunni tribal leaders. It has also ingratiated itself to Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed government and fought alongside Sunni tribal militias to battle the Houthi incursion.

The strategy has been remarkably effective for Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had hundreds of fighters at its founding in 2009. It now has about 7,000 fighters in Yemen, most of them Sunnis recruited from territory the Houthis have attempted to take over.

It has planted landmines and bombs across Yemen that have killed hundreds, held journalists hostage and, in 2015, orchestrated the massacre at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris.

The US government considers Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to be the most sophisticated and threatening branch of Al-Qaeda.

Adapt the tactic, keep the mission

In adapting its methods to Yemeni culture, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has made some missteps.

In 2011, the group attempted to impose extremely strict Islamic rule over two areas it controlled in south Yemen. Al-Qaeda instituted rigid punishments of the sort common in Afghanistan, such as cutting off the hands of a thief and banning the chewed stimulant plant called khat.

These extreme rules got Al-Qaeda run out of town by Sunni tribal militias.

The next time Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula asserted its political power over parts of Yemen left ungoverned in the chaos of civil war, in 2015, it did not rule directly over these territories. Rather, it allowed a local council to govern according to their own norms and customs. And it kept the khat market open.

Al-Qaeda also paid for long-neglected public services like schools, water and electricity – effectively becoming the state.

According to the International Crisis Group, a humanitarian organisation, this softer stance helped garner the acceptance of the local population. That, in turn, ensured al-Qaida could keep using Yemen as a regional headquarters.

A similar shift from global to local has occurred in Al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia, Iraq and Syria.

Al-Qaeda is no longer a hierarchical organisation taking orders from its famous, charismatic leader, as it was on 9/11.

But it is stronger and more resilient than it was under bin Laden. And the “war on terror” has helped, not hurt it.

(This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/al-qaida-is-stronger-today-than-it-was-on-9-11-117718">original article</a>)

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

By Christian Taylor Al-Qaeda has recruited an estimated 40,000 fighters since September 11, 2001, when the Osama bin Laden-led extremist group attacked the United States, according to the not-for-profit Council on Foreign Relations.

By Christian Taylor Al-Qaeda has recruited an estimated 40,000 fighters since September 11, 2001, when the Osama bin Laden-led extremist group attacked the United States, according to the not-for-profit Council on Foreign Relations. Despite a United States-led global “war on terror” that has cost $5.9 trillion, killed an estimated 480,000 to 507,000 people and assassinated bin Laden, al-Qaida has grown and spread since 9/11, expanding from rural Afghanistan into North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, the Gulf States, the Middle East and Central Asia. In those places, Al-Qaeda has developed new political influence – in some areas even supplanting the local government. So how does a religious extremist group with fewer than a hundred members in September 2001 become a transnational terror organisation, even as the world’s biggest military has targeted it for elimination? According to my dissertation research on the resiliency of Al-Qaeda and the work of other scholars, the US “war on terror” was the catalyst for Al-Qaeda’s growth. Bin Laden and the ‘war on terror’ Al-Qaeda was founded in Afghanistan in 1988 in response to the Soviet invasion of that country. For decades, it was a small, weak and uninspiring movement. Bin Laden sought to raise an Islamic coalition of forces to establish a caliphate – an Islamic state governed with strict Islamic law – across the Muslim world. But as late as 1996 he had just 30 fighters willing to die for the cause. For years, bin Laden tried to merge with such extremist groups as Egypt’s Ibn al-Khattab and the Libyan Islamic Fighting group, hoping to create a global Islamist movement. These organisations rejected bin Laden’s overtures. These disparate groups lacked a common enemy that could unite them in al-Qaeda’s fight for an Islamic caliphate. So bin Laden shifted his strategy. He decided to make the United States – a country most Islamic extremist groups see as the enemy of Islam – his main target. In 1998 Al-Qaeda waged successful attacks on the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. In 2000, it bombed the USS Cole, a military ship refuelling in a Yemen harbour, killing 17 sailors. Bin Laden hoped the US would respond with a military invasion into Muslim majority territory, triggering a holy war that would put al-Qaida at the forefront of the fight against these unholy invaders. After Al-Qaeda operatives flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, killing 2,977 people, bin Laden got his wish. The United States invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Eighteen months later, it invaded Iraq. How Al-Qaeda grew Islamic groups and individual extremists flocked to bin Laden’s cause after 9/11. Al-Qaeda became the nucleus of a global violent Islamist movement, with affiliates across the Middle East and Africa swearing their allegiance. At the same time, the war in Afghanistan was decimating Al-Qaeda’s core operations. Leaders were killed by drone strikes or driven into hiding. The Bush administration claimed killing 75 per cent of Al-Qaeda leadership. Bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders sought refuge in places like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan and Yemen – remote areas outside the easy reach of US ground forces. To evade US detection, Al-Qaeda had to limit communication between its newly decentralised fronts. That meant the group’s global leadership had to have autonomy to operate relatively independently. Bin Laden expected Al-Qaeda affiliates to adhere to certain core values, strategies and, of course, pursue the objective of establishing an Islamic caliphate. But newly minted regional al-Qaida leaders – people like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq, Ahmed Abdi Godane in Somalia and Nasir al-Wuhayshi in Yemen – enjoyed enough autonomy to pursue their own agendas in these unstable places. Al-Qaeda Iraq, al-Shabaab and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as their groups came to be known, embedded themselves in the local political scene. They began building credibility, establishing alliances and recruiting fighters. By 2015, when bin Laden was killed, al-Qaida was a network of regional caliphates. Today its territory spans from Afghanistan and Pakistan to North Africa, the Middle East and beyond. Manipulation of a sectarian divide Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, headquartered in Yemen, is a case study in how the group now wields its power more locally. Yemen has been in civil war since 2015, when a Houthi Shiite armed group declared war against the country’s Sunni Muslim government. Although this conflict appears sectarian in nature, the Yemen scholar Marieke Brandt argues it is largely about political power – namely, the Yemeni government’s longstanding neglect of the Houthi minority, who come from northern Yemen. Nonetheless, Al-Qaeda – a Sunni terror group – saw political opportunity in Yemen’s civil war. The group has played up religious divisions in the civil war. Using its Arabic magazine, martyrdom videos, poetry and popular songs, Al-Qaeda has endeared itself to the local Sunni people and Yemen’s powerful Sunni tribal leaders. It has also ingratiated itself to Yemen’s Saudi Arabia-backed government and fought alongside Sunni tribal militias to battle the Houthi incursion. The strategy has been remarkably effective for Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula had hundreds of fighters at its founding in 2009. It now has about 7,000 fighters in Yemen, most of them Sunnis recruited from territory the Houthis have attempted to take over. It has planted landmines and bombs across Yemen that have killed hundreds, held journalists hostage and, in 2015, orchestrated the massacre at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris. The US government considers Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula to be the most sophisticated and threatening branch of Al-Qaeda. Adapt the tactic, keep the mission In adapting its methods to Yemeni culture, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has made some missteps. In 2011, the group attempted to impose extremely strict Islamic rule over two areas it controlled in south Yemen. Al-Qaeda instituted rigid punishments of the sort common in Afghanistan, such as cutting off the hands of a thief and banning the chewed stimulant plant called khat. These extreme rules got Al-Qaeda run out of town by Sunni tribal militias. The next time Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula asserted its political power over parts of Yemen left ungoverned in the chaos of civil war, in 2015, it did not rule directly over these territories. Rather, it allowed a local council to govern according to their own norms and customs. And it kept the khat market open. Al-Qaeda also paid for long-neglected public services like schools, water and electricity – effectively becoming the state. According to the International Crisis Group, a humanitarian organisation, this softer stance helped garner the acceptance of the local population. That, in turn, ensured al-Qaida could keep using Yemen as a regional headquarters. A similar shift from global to local has occurred in Al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia, Iraq and Syria. Al-Qaeda is no longer a hierarchical organisation taking orders from its famous, charismatic leader, as it was on 9/11. But it is stronger and more resilient than it was under bin Laden. And the “war on terror” has helped, not hurt it. (This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article) (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL.)

Al-Qaeda is stronger today than it was on 9/11

A YouTube fact-check feature which is meant to tackle misinformation accidentally tagged live broadcasts of a <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/notre-dame-fire-under-control-partially-extinguished-210772">fire engulfing Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris</a> with details about the 9/11 terror attacks.

The blaze erupted in the UNESCO world heritage landmark in the French capital Monday, sending its spire and roof crashing to the ground as flames and clouds of smoke billowed into the sky.

The fire, which at one point threatened the entire edifice, was brought under control early Tuesday about nine hours after it broke out.

News outlets began live-streaming broadcasts of the fire on YouTube, but below some of the clips an unusual text box popped up -- an entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica about the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

In those attacks, Al-Qaeda militants hijacked two passenger planes and flew them into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York, causing them to collapse, while a third hijacked jet smashed into the Pentagon. Some 3,000 people were killed.

A spokesman for YouTube, which is owned by Google, said the text box feature had been disabled for live streams related to the fire.

"These panels are triggered algorithmically and our systems sometimes make the wrong call," the spokesman told AFP. "We are deeply saddened by the ongoing fire at the Notre-Dame Cathedral."

The feature, which also links to other outside sources such as Wikipedia, was introduced last year after YouTube faced intense criticism over videos containing misleading and extreme content.&nbsp;

The panels are supposed to combat misleading videos about well-known events -- such as the first successful manned landing on the moon -- by presenting the true facts, in a bid to stop the spread of conspiracy theories.

YouTube, Facebook and Twitter came under fire last month after a horrific video of a gunman's deadly rampage at two New Zealand mosques was circulated on the sites.&nbsp;

The Christchurch massacre, in which 50 people were killed, was live-streamed on Facebook, which moved to block the footage. But it was then shared repeatedly on the other two sites.

A YouTube fact-check feature which is meant to tackle misinformation accidentally tagged live broadcasts of a fire engulfing Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris with details about the 9/11 terror attacks.

A YouTube fact-check feature which is meant to tackle misinformation accidentally tagged live broadcasts of a fire engulfing Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris with details about the 9/11 terror attacks. The blaze erupted in the UNESCO world heritage landmark in the French capital Monday, sending its spire and roof crashing to the ground as flames and clouds of smoke billowed into the sky. The fire, which at one point threatened the entire edifice, was brought under control early Tuesday about nine hours after it broke out. News outlets began live-streaming broadcasts of the fire on YouTube, but below some of the clips an unusual text box popped up -- an entry from the Encyclopedia Britannica about the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. In those attacks, Al-Qaeda militants hijacked two passenger planes and flew them into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York, causing them to collapse, while a third hijacked jet smashed into the Pentagon. Some 3,000 people were killed. A spokesman for YouTube, which is owned by Google, said the text box feature had been disabled for live streams related to the fire. "These panels are triggered algorithmically and our systems sometimes make the wrong call," the spokesman told AFP. "We are deeply saddened by the ongoing fire at the Notre-Dame Cathedral." The feature, which also links to other outside sources such as Wikipedia, was introduced last year after YouTube faced intense criticism over videos containing misleading and extreme content. The panels are supposed to combat misleading videos about well-known events -- such as the first successful manned landing on the moon -- by presenting the true facts, in a bid to stop the spread of conspiracy theories. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter came under fire last month after a horrific video of a gunman's deadly rampage at two New Zealand mosques was circulated on the sites. The Christchurch massacre, in which 50 people were killed, was live-streamed on Facebook, which moved to block the footage. But it was then shared repeatedly on the other two sites.

YouTube accidentally links Notre-Dame fire to 9/11 attacks

The United States today&nbsp;marks the 15th anniversary of the deadly 9/11 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people when al-Qaeda suicide bombers crashed four passenger jets into the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington and a field in Shanksville.&nbsp; 
 
While speaking during his weekly radio and online address&nbsp;on the eve of September 11 terror attacks, US President Barack Obama urged Americans to remain united on Saturday. He also&nbsp;vowed that his government will keep doing everything to protect the homeland, and insisted how America responds in the face of terrorism matters. 
 
The 9/11 attack victims will be remembered at a solemn service at Ground Zero in New York on the site of the rebuilt World Trade Center, while Obama will address a ceremony at the Pentagon. 
 
&quot;This weekend, we honour their memory once more. We stand with the survivors who still bear the scars of that day,&quot; Obama said during the weekly address. 
 
Nineteen al-Qaeda suicide bombers hijacked four passenger jets on September 11, 2001 crashing them into the Twin Towers. &nbsp;It was the first foreign attack on the US mainland in almost two centuries and sparked US-led invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), where war rages on more than a decade later. 
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<h5>&quot;This weekend, we honour their memory once more. We stand with the survivors who still bear the scars of that day,&quot; Obama said during the weekly address.</h5>
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The 15th anniversary comes with the United States in the midst of a divisive presidential campaign between Hillary Clinton, who was New York senator at the time of the attacks, and Manhattan tycoon Donald Trump.&nbsp;&nbsp;Both the candidates are expected to attend the New York ceremony.&nbsp; 
 
Obama has on several occasions also denounced Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump&#39;s bombastic rhetoric towards Muslims. 
 
After the December shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, Trump had called for a temporary ban on the entry of Muslims to the country. 
 
The President, however, pointed out that US cannot give in to those who would divide it. &quot;It&#39;s our diversity, our welcoming of all talent, our treating of everybody fairly no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or faith that&#39;s part of what makes our country great. It&#39;s what makes us resilient. And if we stay true to those values, we&#39;ll uphold the legacy of those we&#39;ve lost, and keep our nation strong and free,&quot; Obama was quoted as saying by abc.net.au. 
 
During the first moment of silence at 8:46 am, the time when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the north tower, houses of worship in New York have been asked to toll their bells. Obama will observe a moment of silence at the White House before addressing a memorial ceremony at the Pentagon. 
 
Here is the timeline of the events of the&nbsp;fateful morning&nbsp;which reshaped the course of US history, as reported by AFP:

<ul>
	<li>8:46 am:&nbsp;The first strike</li>
</ul>

An American Airlines Boeing 767 making a Boston-Los Angeles connection with 92 people on board,&nbsp;including five hijackers,&nbsp;smashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, leaving a giant hole in the building&#39;s facade. 
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	<li>9:03 am:&nbsp;Second tower hit</li>
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A United Airlines Boeing 767 making a Boston-Los Angeles connection with 65 people on board,&nbsp;including five hijackers,&nbsp;hits the South Tower of the WTC, sparking a massive explosion.

<ul>
	<li>9:30 am:&nbsp;Bush speaks</li>
</ul>

 
Then US president George W Bush, in Sarasota, Florida, calls the blasts &quot;an apparent terrorist attack.&quot; He orders &quot;a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed these acts&quot; . He assures&nbsp;he will immediately return to Washington.

<ul>
	<li>9:37 am:&nbsp;Pentagon hit</li>
</ul>

 
An American Airlines Boeing 757 making a Washington Dulles-Los Angeles connection with 64 people on board - including five hijackers - smashes into the Pentagon in suburban Washington, setting off two explosions.

<ul>
	<li>9:42 am:&nbsp;Planes grounded</li>
</ul>

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) orders the cancellation of all commercial flights in the United States.

<ul>
	<li>9:59 am:&nbsp;South Tower collapses</li>
</ul>

The WTC&#39;s South Tower, hit 56 minutes earlier, collapses in a huge cloud of smoke and dust.

<ul>
	<li>10:03 am:&nbsp;Crash in Pennsylvania</li>
</ul>

A United Airlines Boeing 757 traveling from Newark to San Francisco with 44 people on board - including four hijackers - crashes into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew apparently fought with the hijackers.

<ul>
	<li>10:28 am:&nbsp;North Tower collapses</li>
</ul>

The north tower of the WTC collapses, an hour and 42 minutes after it was struck. A huge cloud of dust blankets lower Manhattan. 
 
(WION with inputs from agencies)&nbsp;

The 9/11 attack victims will be remembered at a solemn service at Ground Zero in New York on the site of the rebuilt World Trade Center

The United States today marks the 15th anniversary of the deadly 9/11 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people when al-Qaeda suicide bombers crashed four passenger jets into the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington and a field in Shanksville. While speaking during his weekly radio and online address on the eve of September 11 terror attacks, US President Barack Obama urged Americans to remain united on Saturday. He also vowed that his government will keep doing everything to protect the homeland, and insisted how America responds in the face of terrorism matters. The 9/11 attack victims will be remembered at a solemn service at Ground Zero in New York on the site of the rebuilt World Trade Center, while Obama will address a ceremony at the Pentagon. "This weekend, we honour their memory once more. We stand with the survivors who still bear the scars of that day," Obama said during the weekly address. Nineteen al-Qaeda suicide bombers hijacked four passenger jets on September 11, 2001 crashing them into the Twin Towers. It was the first foreign attack on the US mainland in almost two centuries and sparked US-led invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), where war rages on more than a decade later. "This weekend, we honour their memory once more. We stand with the survivors who still bear the scars of that day," Obama said during the weekly address. The 15th anniversary comes with the United States in the midst of a divisive presidential campaign between Hillary Clinton, who was New York senator at the time of the attacks, and Manhattan tycoon Donald Trump. Both the candidates are expected to attend the New York ceremony. Obama has on several occasions also denounced Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's bombastic rhetoric towards Muslims. After the December shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, Trump had called for a temporary ban on the entry of Muslims to the country. The President, however, pointed out that US cannot give in to those who would divide it. "It's our diversity, our welcoming of all talent, our treating of everybody fairly no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or faith that's part of what makes our country great. It's what makes us resilient. And if we stay true to those values, we'll uphold the legacy of those we've lost, and keep our nation strong and free," Obama was quoted as saying by abc.net.au. During the first moment of silence at 8:46 am, the time when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the north tower, houses of worship in New York have been asked to toll their bells. Obama will observe a moment of silence at the White House before addressing a memorial ceremony at the Pentagon. Here is the timeline of the events of the fateful morning which reshaped the course of US history, as reported by AFP: 8:46 am: The first strike An American Airlines Boeing 767 making a Boston-Los Angeles connection with 92 people on board, including five hijackers, smashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, leaving a giant hole in the building's facade. 9:03 am: Second tower hit A United Airlines Boeing 767 making a Boston-Los Angeles connection with 65 people on board, including five hijackers, hits the South Tower of the WTC, sparking a massive explosion. 9:30 am: Bush speaks Then US president George W Bush, in Sarasota, Florida, calls the blasts "an apparent terrorist attack." He orders "a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed these acts" . He assures he will immediately return to Washington. 9:37 am: Pentagon hit An American Airlines Boeing 757 making a Washington Dulles-Los Angeles connection with 64 people on board - including five hijackers - smashes into the Pentagon in suburban Washington, setting off two explosions. 9:42 am: Planes grounded The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) orders the cancellation of all commercial flights in the United States. 9:59 am: South Tower collapses The WTC's South Tower, hit 56 minutes earlier, collapses in a huge cloud of smoke and dust. 10:03 am: Crash in Pennsylvania A United Airlines Boeing 757 traveling from Newark to San Francisco with 44 people on board - including four hijackers - crashes into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew apparently fought with the hijackers. 10:28 am: North Tower collapses The north tower of the WTC collapses, an hour and 42 minutes after it was struck. A huge cloud of dust blankets lower Manhattan. (WION with inputs from agencies)

US commemorates 9/11 victims on 15th anniversary of deadliest terror strikes

Terrorist group al-Qaeda has warned US of dire consequences if its &quot;crimes continue&quot; in a video released ahead of the 15th anniversary of the deadly attacks in US on September 11, 2001 that killed nearly 3,000 people, according to multiple reports.&nbsp; 
 
In a video translated by the SITE intelligence group, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is quoted by ABC News as saying: &quot;We mark in these days the passage of nearly 15 years since the blessed invasions in Washington, New York and Pennsylvania.&quot; He also warns US that &quot;as long as your crimes continue, then the events of September 11 will be repeated a thousand times, Allah permitting.&quot;&nbsp; 
 
Former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke interpreted the video as a part of al-Qaeda&#39;s push to remain relevant in a world where rival terrorist organisation, the Islamic State, draws more attention and far more recruits. 
 
&quot;The fact that he is communicating on the anniversary is an attempt by him to remind everybody that he exists and is the nominal head of [al-Qaeda],&quot; he said. 
 
Unlike the group&#39;s leader Osama&nbsp;bin Laden, who was killed in 2011 by US special forces, Zawahiri has evaded capture for over a decade. He is believed to be in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Last month, he apppeared in a series of videos, urging Muslims to unite against the ISIS and &quot;crusaders&quot; in Muslim lands. 
 
The CIA, meanwhile, said the agency was aware of the new video but declined to comment further about it. 
 
(WION) 
 
&nbsp;

The video is interpreted as a part of al-Qaeda's efforts to remain relevant as rival organisation, the IS, continues to draw attention

Terrorist group al-Qaeda has warned US of dire consequences if its "crimes continue" in a video released ahead of the 15th anniversary of the deadly attacks in US on September 11, 2001 that killed nearly 3,000 people, according to multiple reports. In a video translated by the SITE intelligence group, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is quoted by ABC News as saying: "We mark in these days the passage of nearly 15 years since the blessed invasions in Washington, New York and Pennsylvania." He also warns US that "as long as your crimes continue, then the events of September 11 will be repeated a thousand times, Allah permitting." Former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke interpreted the video as a part of al-Qaeda's push to remain relevant in a world where rival terrorist organisation, the Islamic State, draws more attention and far more recruits. "The fact that he is communicating on the anniversary is an attempt by him to remind everybody that he exists and is the nominal head of [al-Qaeda]," he said. Unlike the group's leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed in 2011 by US special forces, Zawahiri has evaded capture for over a decade. He is believed to be in Pakistan or Afghanistan. Last month, he apppeared in a series of videos, urging Muslims to unite against the ISIS and "crusaders" in Muslim lands. The CIA, meanwhile, said the agency was aware of the new video but declined to comment further about it. (WION)

Al-Qaeda leader threatens US in video ahead of  9/11 anniversary

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