Spiral of history. How the destruction of the Twin Towers led to an unprecedented war with an unprecedented enemy

On September 11, 2001, the world passed into another dimension. On this day, al-Qaeda terrorists, having seized four passenger airliners, committed suicide attacks in the United States, the largest in history in terms of the number of victims. Two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. The terrorists sent the third liner to the Pentagon building, located near Washington. It was not possible to use the fourth plane, captured by terrorists, for a “fire ram”. According to one version, its passengers and crew entered into a fight with the terrorists, and the plane crashed in a field near the Shanksville borough in Pennsylvania. According to another version, the plane was shot down by a US Air Force fighter when it became clear that they were going to use it as a weapon for a terrorist attack. It remained exactly unknown which object the fourth plane was intended to attack. The investigation suggested that the targets of the latest attack could be the White House or the Capitol. In total, 19 terrorists and 2,977 people were killed, almost exclusively civilians. Another 24 people went missing and were apparently killed, and about 6,300 were injured.

Could the September 11 attacks have been prevented? According to a poll conducted in hot pursuit by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University, three quarters of Americans believe that government agencies had information about the impending terrorist attacks that allowed them to prevent them, but did not take advantage of it. Is it really? The CIA received a list of 19 names of terrorists who are about to commit a major terrorist attack on American soil in the near future. The list included the name of Saudi Nawaf al-Hazmi, one of the hijackers of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon building. He was already in the United States, but was never found until September 11, like the others on the list. The head of the independent commission investigating the 9/11 attacks, Thomas Keane, said back in December 2003 that the attacks could have been prevented. According to the commission, back in 1991, the FBI was considering a scenario of a possible terrorist attack using planes as rams. However, the existence of such a scenario before the FBI does not mean that the American special services had the opportunity to prevent such attacks. Before September 11, the algorithm of the authorities’ behavior after the seizure of a passenger airliner with passengers by terrorists was to save the lives of passengers and crew. For this, they entered into negotiations with the terrorists, satisfied certain requirements in exchange for the release of some of the hostages, and allowed landing. The fact that the planes themselves could turn into weapons of mass destruction, no one could have foreseen.