9/11

1. 9/11

2. WHO IS OSAMA BIN LADEN AND WHAT GROUP IS HE FROM? Osama Bin Laden is the leader of the terrorist group, al-Qaeda. He was born March 10 1957. His real name is Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden. The group Al-Qaeda has been doing attacks since 1988. There isn’t a true estimate of how big the group is because they are so secretive of what they do and they are spread out across the world. He and his group destroyed the twin towers in America and since then, the American soldiers went out to hunt for Osama Bin Laden. He was shot by an American soldier in Pakistan, 2 May 2011. Osama and his group have many terrorist attacks to other people. But 9/11 was the most disastrous. Al-Qaeda has done many attacks. Al-Qaeda’s first attack was in Yemen, 1992. They blew up 2 hotels where they believed some American troops were staying. 2 Australian tourists died and Osama Bin Laden claimed a couple of years later that he was responsible. Also 9/11. The twin towers (world trade centre) collapsed after 2 planes flew into them. The pentagon was also damaged. Nearly 3000 people died that day. Al-Qaeda also attacked Bali in 2002. 202 people died including 88 Australian tourists and 38 Indonesian citizens. 200 more people were injured. Their last attack was January 2011 in Iraq. There were continuous suicide bombs and car bombs. 133 people were dead.

3. WHO WERE THE PEOPLE THAT HIJACKED THE PLANES? There were 19 hijackers from Al-Qaeda and they split up into four groups. Each group also had an additional pilot trained hijacker. The four men from Al-Qaeda were called muscle hijackers. One World Trade Centre was attacked first. Mohamed Atta, Waleed al-Shehri , Wail al-Shehri, Abdulaziz al-Omari and Satam al-Suqami were the muscle hijackers who murded the pilots and crew and took control of the plane that smashed into One World Trade Centre. On the second plane to Two World Trade Centre was Marwan al-Shehhi , Fayez Banihammad, Mohand al-Shehri , Hamza al-Ghamdi and Ahmed al-Ghamdi. The Pentagon was also damaged that day. There was a fourth plane also heading for the White House but it got intercepted, and crashed into a field. The hijackers did not breach the security system, they slipped through their loop-holes. Security didn't challenge the men even with their weapons. Since this day, security and every airport have gotten much more stricter and applying more rules, protecting the world from anything like 9/11.

4. There were 2996 people dead and more than 6,000 injured on 9/11. Everyone who was working in the buildings, on the planes that crashed into the buildings and the hijackers were in great danger of death. There were 246 people on the 4 planes that crashed into the building, and no-one survived on the planes. 2606 people died in the Manhattan towers and 125 at the Pentagon. HOW MANY CASUALTIES WERE THERE? 55 military personnel were killed at the Pentagon. More than 90% of the people in the towers were higher than where the impact was. There were many more casualties in the north tower because it was struck first. The people in the south tower started evacuating in fear of their lives.

5. WHY DID AL-QAEDA ATTACK AMERICA? These reasons are the most probable and likely reasons for the Al-Qaeda attacks on 9/11.Osama Bin Laden’s followers “consider themselves an island of true believers surrounded by a sea of iniquity and think that the future of religion itself, and therefore the world depends on them and their battle.” Therefore, America represented everything that was bad in the world. Osama Bin Laden doesn’t like Israel and America supports Israel financially and helps fund their war against the Palestinians. America also supported Israel when they invaded Lebanon in 1982 which annoyed Osama Bin Laden. Bin Laden said, “What America is tasting now is something insignificant compared to what we have tasted for scores of years. The Islamic world has been tasting this humiliation and this degradation for 80 years… Neither America nor the people who live in it will dream of security before we live in it in Palestine, and not before the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad.” Because of Bin Laden's hate for Israel and America supported Israel, he felt they had attacked him he hated Israel so much. 9/11 was kind of revenge from Bin Laden to America.

6. WHAT WERE THE TWIN TOWERS USED FOR? The twin towers were used for the World Trade Centre. The World Trade Centre was a place to help world trade. 289 members from 85 countries united in this building to talk about world trade. They helped promote world trade, tried to make better relationships between countries using trade, and many more things. The twin towers suffered a fire, bombing and a robbery a few years before the al-Qaeda attacks. They were destroyed on September 11 with North tower being destroyed first then South tower 17 minutes later. The Twin Towers are being rebuilt. Construction started in 2006 and will be completed in 2014. The towers will be 104 storeys high and has cost $3.8 billion dollars. They will be 1776 feet high and will be called the Freedom Towers. The world trade centre will be in the Freedom Towers.

7. http://articles.latimes.com/2001/sep/23/news/mn-48940 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motives_for_the_September_11_attacks http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/whatwerethecausesof911 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin_Laden http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_attacks