“Horrible terrorist acts” was the way the UN Security Council defined the unprecedented suicide attacks against the US on September 11, 2001. On that day, 19 terrorists broke up into groups and almost simultaneously hijacked four passenger airplanes heading for California from Boston, Washington, and Newark. The hijackers had paper knives, tear gas and pepper extract spray cans at their disposal, as well as about 35,000 liters of aviation fuel in the tanks of each of the Boeings 767 and 757. The terrorists managed to quickly establish control over the three planes, but they encountered problems in the fourth one. The crew and the passengers put up desperate resistance. This must have caused this liner to fall on the territory of Pennsylvania. Of the three remaining Boeings, two attacked the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York and one hit the Pentagon building in Washington. The fourth plane, which crashed, had been most likely intended for the Capitol. To understand the cause of an especially heavy toll of human lives in the Big Apple, one should know the WTC. It is a complex consisting of seven modern structures dominated by two tower skyscrapers commonly known as twins. The 110-story, 417- and 415- meters-high buildings were the world’s tallest structures at the time. The towers were a workplace for about 50,000 employees who represented 450 companies from 30 countries. About 100,000 people visited them every day. There was a railway station, a lot of stores, a supermarket, and a bank under the buildings. The WTC had 22 restaurants and bars which served about 30,000 people every day. There were two observation galleries on the roof of one of the twins, which offered a wonderful view within a radius of 110 km. Thousands of people could continuously view and photograph there from dawn to dusk. Admission to the roof was 13 dollars.
The northern tower was the first to be hit at the level of the 94th-98th floors at 8:46, local time, and the other one was attacked at 9:03 at the level of the 78th-85th floors. Experts estimate that even such a powerful air strike should not have ruined the buildings. But what played the fatal role was a great deal of fuel in the airplanes’ tanks. This caused a fire which melted the buildings’ load-carrying steel structures. The southern and the northern towers tumbled down in 56 and 102 minutes’ time, respectively. A total of 1,960 people on the twins’ upper floors over the gaps were trapped and doomed from the very beginning. About 200 of them jumped out of the windows, preferring this death to being burned alive. Very many of those who stayed below the ruination area failed to timely abandon the premises. As a result, the fire and WTC ruination claimed the lives of 2,606 people inside and outside, including the rescuers, among whom there were 341 firemen, 60 policemen, 2 paramedics, and 8 ambulance doctors. About 6,000 people were injured, 125 people were killed at the Pentagon building. The total toll of the four terrorist attacks, including airplane crews and passengers, was 2,977 dead and 25 missing people, plus the lives of 19 terrorists. The victims included citizens of the US and 91 other countries, among them 96 from the former Soviet Union. In addition to claiming human lives, the terrorist act inflicted tremendous material damage worth dozens of billions of dollars on the US. The terrorist act adversely affected not only the US economy but also the world’s markets. The 9/11 Commission, established by the US Congress in July 2004, reported that the acts of terror had been masterminded and perpetrated by the Al-Qaeda organization with Osama bin Laden at the head.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was born in Kuwait in 1965. He attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and completed a degree in mechanical engineering. Then he moved to Pakistan. He was Al-Qaeda’s chief of operations. “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z,” he said in a statement. He was arrested on April 27, 2003, in Pakistan and sent to the notorious detention center at the US military base in Guantanamo, Cuba.
Among the terrorists, 15 came from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon. Four of them had taken pilot training in south Florida.
Some words about mysticism and presentiment. I happened to first come to New York in the fall of 2000, exactly a year before the terrorist act. The first architectural form that stunned me as a photo artist was the World Trade Center – in spite of a huge number of other unique and beautiful architectural masterpieces we know from many films and magazine pictures, such as the sky-scraping Empire State Building, Chrysler, Lincoln Center, the UN, Flatiron, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and many others. I took a strong liking to the twins. I was always haunted by a strange and alarming presentiment that I saw the twins for the last time. So I went on what can be called a days-long photo hunt for these skyscrapers. I would take “full-face” pictures of them from many bridges, the banks of the East River and the Hudson, and even an ocean liner. I also took pictures of the beautiful views of New York from the skyscraper’s roof top. I did all this early in the morning, at The Daytime, and at night depending on the lighting and the whims of nature. I hope to show the now exclusive photos very soon at my solo exhibit.
