It was 21 years ago that the world recorded one of the most remarkable moments of the 21st century. It was 8:46 am local time when the first plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. The Boeing, which was leaving Boston for Los Angeles, was taken over by terrorists, who diverted the aircraft and caused it to crash into that business complex, made up of seven buildings.
The fact quickly took hold of the media around the world, who thought it was an accident. And it was live that the planet saw the second plane crash, 17 minutes after the first attack. At 9:03 a.m., a second Boeing, on the same route as the first, crashed into the south tower.
It was at that moment that suspicions of a terrorist attack were confirmed. But the attacks did not stop. At 9:37 am, a third plane, which had left Washington for Los Angeles, crashed into the Pentagon.
About half an hour later, a fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought off terrorists. The initial investigations indicated that the destination would be the White House, the official residence of the president of the United States, but the authorities determined that the objective would be the Capitol, seat of the US Congress.
In memory is still the collapse of the two towers, which caused panic in Manhattan.
Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack and Osama Bin Laden became the number one enemy of the United States, which began the fight against terrorism. The leader of the terrorist organization was finally killed by US forces on May 2, 2011, in an operation called Spear of Neptune.
In all, the attacks killed 2,977 people, in addition to the 19 hijackers of the planes. It is considered the attack with the highest number of deaths in history.
Since then, highlights Ricardo Alexandre, deputy director of TSF and editor of International, “the great achievement of the American fight against terrorism” was that the country was not the target of a terrorist attack of such magnitude or “even of such dimension”.
“The fight against terrorism has also changed a lot,” he observes, stressing that the technological transformation has allowed the US to abandon the policy of having troops on the ground, replacing it with remote attacks and selective assassinations through the use of drones.
The terrorist attack of September 11 was a milestone in the history of the planet, which changed, for example, the way of traveling by plane, recalls Ricardo Alexandre.
“The need to reinforce security took away our privacy, we accept giving up individual freedoms in the name of security as a collective good,” he recalls.
Despite this, the truth is that today terrorism is less “present” in Western capitals, as it “always has been”, but with very different media coverage.
To commemorate the 21st anniversary of the attacks, US President Joe Biden will lay a wreath at the Pentagon, headquarters of the Department of Defense, where he will also deliver a speech.
Source: TSF
