Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the genesis of the September 11, 2001 attacks

Smoke rises from the towers of the World Trade Center in New York, after the impacts of two planes hijacked by the hijackers on September 11, 2001. © Mario Tama / Getty

Text by: Anoushka Notaras

17 mins

Twenty years ago, on the morning of September 11, 2001 on the east coast of the United States, four airliners were hijacked almost simultaneously, transformed into flying bombs by 19 hijackers.

For the second time in its history, the United States is struck on its territory, exposing a vulnerability of which it was unaware.

In less than two hours, the symbols of the world's leading power were attacked, killing nearly 3,000 and injuring thousands.

These attacks, the deadliest in modern history, left the whole world in shock and marked the breaking point that tipped the world into the 21st century.

Back to the genesis of September 11, 2001.

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8:46 am, the world stops

It was 8:46 a.m. in New York when a Boeing 767 from American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at nearly 800 km / h, with 92 people on board, including five terrorists. The shock of the impact against the blue sky is deafening. On this Tuesday morning, many New Yorkers are already at work and on the sidewalks, amazement and panic mark their faces. All eyes are on the North Tower, from which flames and thick smoke from the explosion escape. It all happened too fast. We first believe in an accident.

Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03 am, when several television channels are already broadcasting the event, the whole world sees, live, United Airlines flight 175 which is embedded in the South Tower.

65 people on board, including five hijackers.

As fire ravages the upper floors of the two towers, Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, informs President George W. Bush: “ 

A second plane has hit the other tower and America is under attack.

 "

But at 9:37 a.m. in Virginia, a third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, crashed into the western facade of the Pentagon, the headquarters of the US Department of Defense, with 64 people on board, including five suicide bombers.

At 9:59 a.m., the South Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC) collapsed on itself, in a deluge of dust and debris, 55 minutes after the impact of the plane.

New York, September 11.

Twenty years ago.

© Baptiste Condominas

The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed at 10:03 a.m. in a field near Pittsburg, Pa., With 44 people on board, including four terrorists.

Passengers on the flight are said to have fought with the hijackers after being told about the tragedy on their cell phones.

It is believed that this flight, initially en route to Washington, was intended to attack the Capitol.

At 10:28 a.m., the North Tower of the WTC collapsed in another deluge of rubble and dust, 102 minutes after the impact of American Airlines Flight 11.

Hundreds of people, who could not be evacuated, as well as rescuers who climbed the floors, died buried under the rubble.

The collapsing towers also caused extensive damage to nearby buildings, such as WTC Tower 7 which collapsed at 5:20 p.m.

The help, come from all sides, try to help the survivors while Manhattan is covered with a gigantic cloud of black smoke.

These four attacks, carried out in less than two hours, claimed 2,977 victims, including 441 rescuers from New York City.

More than 6,000 people are injured and some will develop diseases related to the attacks, in particular because of the atmosphere saturated with toxic particles which persisted for several weeks after the attacks.

It will take more than three months to extinguish the enormous blaze of debris and clean up the site.

The construction site, which will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, will last until 2007 while the construction of the One World Trade Center and the 9/11 Memorial, located at the site of the twin towers, has already started.

Video thumbnail for journalists September 11, 2001 © RFI

Go back

To better understand what led to the attacks of September 11, 2001, we have to go back to 1979, when the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan took place. We are in the middle of the cold war and faced with the expansionism of the Soviet Union, the Western countries, led by the United States, organize support for the mujahedin, the fighters of the Afghan resistance, by sending weapons. and funding, in particular for combat training. The financial participation of Saudi Arabia would vary, according to the sources, from the simple to the triple compared to the budget allocated by the American Congress to this operation.

The CIA, which centralizes operations, goes through the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the Pakistani secret services based in Peshawar, to redistribute arms and funds to the various rebel leaders. It is also the ISI which is responsible exclusively for the training of the combatants, no American should be present on the ground.

At the same time, we are witnessing the arrival of foreign volunteers from all over the Arab-Muslim world to support the Afghan mujahedin in the name of jihad. Among them are three men, Abdullah Azzam, Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden who in 1984 founded the Maktab al-Khadamat (MAK), the Service

Bureau

, or the

Afghan Office

, to raise funds from their networks in the countries. Arabs and Westerners in order to recruit and provide military and ideological training for volunteer foreign fighters.

Abdullah Azzam

, of Palestinian origin, forged a strong network of connections in the Islamist movement of the Muslim Brotherhood after studying in Cairo, Egypt. Charismatic, he is the key man in the MAK's recruitment policy, described by radical Islamists as “ 

the imam of jihad

 ” for his role in the development of the “ 

global jihad movement

 ”.

Egyptian

Ayman Al-Zawahiri

, a trained surgeon leading the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, arrives in Afghanistan to " 

continue the holy war against the United States and drive them out of the land of Muslims,

 " after spending three years in Egyptian jails, accused of having been involved in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981.

And

Osama bin Laden

, who arrived in Afghanistan to lend a hand to his Mujahedin brothers. Son of the founder of the most important Saudi construction company, he was commissioned by the Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal to recruit and install the Saudi volunteer fighters in Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. Under the influence of his mentor Abdullah Azzam, Bin Laden becomes more radicalized.

Through its international network, MAK establishes recruiting and fundraising branches in Western countries, which operate under NGO status to help the Mujahedin cause in Afghanistan.

During the Cold War era, the enemy was Soviet.

This is how Mustapha Chalabi, a close friend of Abdullah Azzam, installs the Al-Kifah Refugee Center in the Al-Farooq mosque in Brooklyn, and makes it a recruitment point that will prove to be a key position in the action. terrorist for the next ten years.

MAK, forerunner of al-Qaeda

MAK is also in close contact with Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) through which funds sent by the United States, Saudi Arabia and Western countries transit. Even if it played only a minimal role during the war in Afghanistan, its logistical and financial base gave it a solid structure. In 1988, when Soviet troops began their withdrawal from Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda, " 

the Base

 », In Peshawar, Pakistan. In this new context, differences of opinion oppose Azzam, who wants to take advantage of the funds to install an Islamic government in Afghanistan, to Al-Zawahiri, who wants to finance a global jihad. Azzam was assassinated on November 24, 1989. Al-Zawahiri and Bin Laden are among the suspects. The Saudi takes matters into his own hands and the MAK is absorbed into al-Qaeda. Al-Zawahiri, he remains at the head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

The conflict that has torn apart the MAK in Pakistan spills over to the Al-Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, where Mustapha Chalabi's pro-Azzam supporters clash with supporters of Egyptian Islamist

Omar Abdel Rahman

, a newcomer, a leader of the Egyptian clan close to Al-Zawahiri. In his sermons, the one who is also called the " 

blind sheikh

 " violently attacks the United States and Israel. One of his disciples, the Egyptian El Sayyid Nosair, is identified for his participation in the assassination of nationalist rabbi Meir Kahane on November 5, 1990 in New York. It was on this occasion that the FBI noted the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood on American territory and began a close surveillance of Omar Adbel Rahman and the activities of the mosque thanks to an infiltrator.

The end of the war in Afghanistan, which stems from the break-up of the Soviet Union, marks the end of the Cold War.

But for leaders of the Egyptian clan like Al-Zawahiri and Omar Abdel Rahman, whose hatred of the West grew in Egyptian prisons, victory over the Soviet Union is not an end in itself: the fight ends. continues, but this time against their former defender, the United States.

Break with Saudi Arabia

At the end of the war, Osama Bin Laden, who has gained prominence in the jihadist sphere, returns to Saudi Arabia.

In 1990 the first Gulf War broke out with the invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. Faced with the Iraqi threat, Bin Laden offers the help of his mujahedin to King Fahd. But the latter refuses and decides to resort to the American army. Bin Laden then accuses the Wahhabi monarchy of opening the “ 

holy land

 ” to “ 

infidels 

”. In May 1991, he left Saudi Arabia and settled in Sudan.

As he cannot bring himself to the idea of ​​demobilizing the mujahedin alongside whom he fought in Afghanistan, he uses the family business, the largest Saudi construction company, to employ them on a construction site in Sudan.

In reality, Bin Laden is using this site to set up training camps for his Islamist fighters while continuing his work of recruiting volunteers who are trained by the veterans of Afghanistan.

In Khartoum, the Islamist regime of Omar-el-Béchir approves the arrival of these “ 

Arab Afghans

”.

In 1993, his family blocked his participation in the family business and repudiated him.

At the beginning of 1994, he was stripped of his Saudi nationality.

1993: first attack on American soil

On February 26, 1993, a terrorist attack struck the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York. A car bomb explosion in the parking lot of the North Tower leaves 6 dead and 1,042 injured. Correctly positioned, the bomb should have caused the fall of the North tower on the South tower. Bin Laden is immediately suspected. For its part, the FBI identifies Ramzi Yousef, a Pakistani Islamic terrorist, as the pyrotechnician of the bomb, and manages to link him to Omar Abdel Rahman without however being able to demonstrate that the latter is the sponsor of the attack. But, thanks to his informant infiltrated near the " 

blind sheikh

 As personal assistant, the FBI obtains a recording which allows it to prove the implication of the sheikh in the terrorist actions on American soil. In June 1993, Omar Abdel Rahman was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. Incarcerated in North Carolina, he died in 2017. Ramzi Yousef, the planner of the WTC attack, has disappeared.

However, we find its trace by chance in Manila in the Philippines, in January 1995, after an apartment fire in which the FBI found a computer containing information on a large-scale plot: Operation "Bojinka". This provided for the simultaneous destruction of 11 American airliners over the Pacific, a precursor plan to the attacks of September 11, 2001. In February 1995, Yousef was arrested in Pakistan and transferred to the United States to be imprisoned there for life. the 1993 WTC attack and the “Bojinka” project.

The arrest of Ramzi Yousef will make it possible to make the link with another character: his uncle,

Khalid Cheikh Mohammed

.

This Pakistani, raised in Kuwait, fought in Afghanistan until 1992 and became the head of al-Qaeda's foreign operations in 1996. He was behind the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the “Bojinka” project. And will be the mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Bin Laden, public enemy number 1

In 1996, Bin Laden returned to Afghanistan where the Taliban took power.

He is joined there by Al-Zawahiri, and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad merges with al-Qaeda.

In early 1998, Bin Laden proclaimed " 

jihad against America

 ", accused of occupying the Arabian Peninsula.

Considered by the Americans as the n ° 2 of al-Qaeda, it is however Al-Zawahiri who whispers the attack strategy in his ear.

On August 7, 1998,

a double attack

simultaneously strikes the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. There are 224 dead including 12 Americans, and more than 5,000 injured. The FBI, dispatched to Nairobi barely 12 hours after the attacks, managed to collect a phone number after questioning a suspect. This telephone number turns out to be that of a house in Yemen which serves as a communication relay between Bin Laden and all his supporters around the world. For the Americans, this information proves that al-Qaeda is indeed at the origin of the double attack. The FBI is offering a bounty of up to five million dollars for any information that could lead to the capture of what is now "public enemy number 1". In the world of radical Islamists, he is a hero.

American reprisals were not long in coming.

On August 20, 1998, Operation Infinite Reach simultaneously strikes and destroys a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, suspected of manufacturing chemical weapons for al-Qaeda, and a training camp in Afghanistan where bin Laden had been spotted by the CIA.

But this is a double failure, attributed in particular to the lack of precision of the information collected by the CIA.

For the Americans, the pressure is mounting a notch and no new missile strikes are possible until the information is 100% reliable.

For President Clinton, this fiasco comes on top of the tumult which carries him to the front page of all the American media: the Monica Lewinsky affair.

A critical dysfunction between the American intelligence services

Meanwhile, the investigation into the al-Qaeda network is progressing thanks to the phone number of a house in Yemen collected by the FBI during its mission in Kenya. The listening set up by the CIA allows him to learn that an important meeting of al-Qaeda is scheduled for January 5, 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. But the US intelligence agency will never share this crucial information with the FBI. Later, however, it will be shown that several people present at this meeting participated in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The FBI continues its investigation to dismantle the terrorist network, while the CIA fails to transmit a second crucial information: the arrival on American soil of two Saudis members of al-Qaeda thanks to multiple entry visas perfectly in order . The investigation will reveal that Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi were present at the Kuala Lumpur meeting and that they had completed pilot training in the United States. The infiltration of Islamist “moles” in the United States took place over several years. The Americans never suspected that such a network had been set up.

According to Jack Cloonan of the bin Laden cell at the FBI (1996-2002), “ 

if we had known of the presence of these two individuals on American soil 16 or 18 months before the attacks of September 11, we could have had them. place under surveillance […] and thus discover a good part of what was being prepared

.

"

►

To read also: The damning report for the CIA and the FBI

However, a special unit had been created within the CIA in 1996 to fight against al-Qaeda and track down Osama bin Laden. Led by the CIA in a completely autonomous manner, the "Bin Laden Unit", codenamed "Alec Station", also included a detachment of FBI agents within its teams. It would therefore have been logical for the CIA to warn the FBI upon receipt of this vital information. One of the arguments put forward by the CIA was to say that this information did not concern the FBI but only the CIA, because it concerned a confidential international issue.

This communication failure between CIA and FBI is partly attributable to the historical mode of operation between these two agencies, governed by the principle of protection of sources and contacts, fundamental in the world of intelligence.

It also highlights the opposing methodologies of the two agencies: the former wait to see where new information can lead them, while the latter advocate taking action.

For the 9/11 Commission of Inquiry, the CIA did not have an operational strategy to fight al-Qaeda.

During his hearing, George Tenet, the director of the CIA, will admit having " 

made mistakes

 ".

The FBI will also be criticized for failing to assess the growing threat of terrorism.

Countdown

On October 12, 2000, less than a year before the September 11 attacks, the American guided-missile destroyer USS Cole was struck in its side by a kamikaze boat loaded with explosives while it was parked in Aden harbor. in Yemen to refuel.

Seventeen sailors are killed and more than thirty people are injured.

The attack is attributed to al-Qaeda.

The attacks of September 11 are planned in the same logic as those of the two American embassies in Africa, but with a higher bid: to strike the symbols of the United States, Wall Street, the Pentagon and the Capitol (target of the fourth plane which crushed in Pennsylvania) directly on their territory, causing as much casualties and damage as possible.

Without having clearly claimed responsibility for these attacks, Bin Laden admits to being the instigator.

Refugee in Afghanistan and protected by the Taliban power which refuses to hand him over to the Americans, he is located in the mountain ranges of Afghanistan.

Thanks to the ISI, Pakistani intelligence, however, he managed to escape to Pakistan.

President George W. Bush demands that Bin Laden be captured " 

dead or alive

 ", and increases the bounty to $ 25 million for any information that would aid in his arrest.

►

To read also: Bin Laden: life and death of the most wanted terrorist in the world

In October 2001, the Bush administration launched, with the support of Western countries, the " 

war against terrorism

 " in Afghanistan.

In December, in a video released by Al-Jazeera, Bin Laden said the September 11 attacks were aimed at Washington's support for Israel.

In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense of the United States, ordered the attack on Iraq, accusing Saddam Hussein's Baathist party of supporting international terrorism.

Khalid Cheikh Mohammed, arrested in 2003, will acknowledge his responsibility in the organization of the September 11 attacks during his trial which opened in January 2021. He is currently being held in the Guantánamo camp in Cuba.

The hunt against Bin Laden intensified from 2007 and ended on May 2, 2011, during the Obama presidency, when he was shot down during a commando operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The announcement of his death by Barack Obama triggers a wave of celebrations in the United States and George W. Bush will hail " 

a great victory for the United States." 

"

Our selection on the subject

•   

To read:

→ What September 11, 2001 has changed

→ The trial of the five accused of the 9/11 attacks resumes in Guantánamo

→ Air security: what has changed since 9/11

•   

To listen:

→ Ten years after his death, what remains of Bin Laden?

→ Jean-Pierre Filiu, professor at Sciences Po and author of the book “The nine lives of al-Qaeda”

→ 15 years after the September 11 attacks: what changes in societies?

→ Ondes de choc, an original podcast dedicated to the reconstruction journey of victims of terrorism around the world.

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• September 11, 2001

• Terrorism

• United States

• al-Qaeda

• Osama bin Laden

• EI