As The September 11 Attacks Did

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

18 years after the attacks of September 11 in the United States, new data, videos, photos and objects continue to emerge that recall the tragedy and that over the years have helped to reconstruct and explain what is considered to be the worst terrorist attacks in the history of the country.

Coinciding with the anniversary, the Spanish writer Pilar Urbano publishes the book Jefe Atta. Suicide master, who tries to reconstruct the facts to explain how it was that their authors carried out their wrongdoing.

Here are 5 crucial points in the attack, according to the book:

Who was the intellectual author?

Embed from Getty Images

It was Mohamed Atta, the leader of the terrorist group in the Hamburg cell, who launched the plan. Born in Egypt and educated at a university in Germany, he recruited Marwan al Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and Hani Hanjour to become the pilots in charge of the attacks in New York, Boston, and Washington.

How many terrorists participated in the attacks?

Embed from Getty Images

20 people formed the command that would carry out the attacks divided into groups of five terrorists each. The instructions that each and every one of them received from the high command of Al Quaeda were clear: they should disperse in different cities in the United States, enroll in an academy to learn how to fly commercial airplanes, and carry out anonymous lives with cover jobs. to hide their activities from the civilian population. Their mission, explained to them months before the attacks, would cost them their lives.

How did they know their targets?

Embed from Getty Images

Long before carrying out their attacks, the terrorists made trips to the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the Capitol, and became familiar with the airports where they would operate, according to the aforementioned book.

The detail that almost stops the tragedy

Embed from Getty Images

Zacarías Moussaoui, the so-called “number 20 terrorist”, could have been the key piece to disarm the deadly September 11 plan. Pilar Urbano tells in her book that the man of Franco-Algerian origin raised the suspicions of her flight instructor when she showed interest only in learning certain flight maneuvers, such as downhill descents or turning maneuvers. On August 16, the police arrested the Oklahoma resident after being reported by his teacher. Weeks before the arrest, agents Kenneth Wilson and Coleen Rowley reported to the FBI their suspicions that Arab extremists were learning to pilot commercial aircraft with dangerous objectives.

Unfortunately his reports did not arrive on time and the police also did not understand that Moussaoui was wanted by the French authorities for his alleged association with the Islamic Jihad organization, as well as the fact that the man was carrying a false passport. Today Moussaoui is serving a life sentence in federal prison.