9/11 Attacks

Newly disclosed documents reveal more details of evidence in 9/11 attacks

Newly unsealed documents give one of the most detailed views yet of the evidence gathered on the accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, including how prosecutors allege he and others interacted with the hijackers who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks. The summaries of evidence released Thursday include Mohammed's own statements over the years, phone records and other documents alleging coordination between Mohammed and the hijackers, videos included in al-Qaida's planning for the attacks and prosecutors' summaries of government simulations of the flights of the four airliners that day. But few other details were given. Also to be presented are the photos and death certificates of 2,976 people killed that day at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field, where the fourth airliner commandeered by the al-Qaida hijackers smashed into the ground after a revolt by passengers. The newly revealed framework of military prosecutors' potential case ...

Biden administration wages battle over plea for accused 9/11 mastermind

The Biden administration doubled down Thursday on its unusual court battle to derail a plea deal that the government itself had reached with accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. It urged a federal appeals panel to block Mohammed's guilty plea from going forward as scheduled Friday at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Defence lawyers described the attempts to throw out the agreement as the latest in two decades of fitful and negligent mishandling of the case by the US military and successive administrations. The fight has put the Biden administration at odds with the US military officials it had appointed to oversee justice in al-Qaida's attacks on Sept 11, 2001, that killed nearly 3,000 people. It was the latest tumult and uncertainty in two decades of troubled prosecution tied to one of the deadliest attacks on American soil. A new filing Thursday from Justice Department lawyers argued that the gravity of the extraordinarily important case warranted Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin ..

Lawyers try hard for bail plea of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Mohammed

Mohammed is due to enter his plea Friday morning in the attacks, in which 19 al-Qaida hijackers smashed airliners into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon

Biden admin asks court to block plea deal for mastermind of 9/11 attacks

The Biden administration on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to block a plea agreement for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants that would spare them the risk of the death penalty. The Justice Department argued in a brief filed with a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia that the government would be irreparably harmed if the guilty pleas were accepted. It said the government would be denied a chance for a public trial and the opportunity to seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world. The military judge at Guantanamo Bay and a military appeals panel rejected Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin's effort to throw out the plea agreement, saying he had no power to do so after the senior Pentagon official for Guantanamo approved it in July. Mohammed was due to enter his guilty plea on Friday and his two co-defendants next ..

9/11 memorial unveiled in New Jersey to honour victims, heroes of attack

The solemn ceremony, was attended by over 350 people, including local officials, state senators, assembly members, and first responders

9/11 plotters agree to plead guilty 20 yrs after Twin Tower attack in US

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two of his alleged accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, have agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and murder charges

Al-Qaeda's primary plotter of 9/11 attacks agrees to plead guilty

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused as the main plotter in al-Qaeda's September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has agreed to plead guilty, the Defense Department said, pointing to a long-delayed resolution in an attack that altered the course of the United States and much of the Middle East. He and two accomplices, Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, are expected to enter the pleas at the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as soon as next week. Pentagon officials declined to immediately release the terms of the plea bargain. The New York Times, citing unidentified Pentagon officials, said the terms included the men's longstanding condition that they be spared risk of the death penalty. The US agreement with the men to enter into a plea agreement comes more than 16 years after their prosecution began for al-Qaeda's attack. It comes more than 20 years after militants flew commandeered commercial airliners into buildings. The attack killed nearly 3,000 people and ..

Marking 9/11 attacks, Joe Biden says world is safer with US leadership

Biden spoke about his visits to the other sites. "I join you on this solemn day to renew our sacred vow: never forget," he said

United States marks 22 years since 9/11, from ground zero to Alaska

Americans are looking back on the horror and legacy of 9/11, gathering Monday at memorials, firehouses, city halls and elsewhere to observe the 22nd anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on US soil. Commemorations stretch from the attack sites at New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania to Alaska and beyond. President Joe Biden is due at at a ceremony on a military base in Anchorage. His visit, en route to Washington, DC, from a trip to India and Vietnam, is a reminder that the impact of 9/11 was felt in every corner of the nation, however remote. The hijacked plane attacks claimed nearly 3,000 lives and reshaped American foreign policy and domestic fears. On that day, we were one country, one nation, one people, just like it should be. That was the feeling that everyone came together and did what we could, where we were at, to try to help," said Eddie Ferguson, the fire-rescue chief in Virginia's Goochland County. It's more than 100 miles (

US first lady Jill Biden shares memories of 9/11 as wife, sister, more

When Jill Biden realised that terrorists had attacked America on September 11, 2001, her husband, Joe, wasn't the only loved one whose safety she worried about. Biden recalled being scared to death that her sister Bonny Jacobs, a United Airlines flight attendant, was on one of the four hijacked airplanes that were flown into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing nearly 3,000 people. After learning that her sister was safe at her Pennsylvania home, I went straight to Bonny's house, Biden told The Associated Press on Saturday as she and her sister remembered that day. On Sunday, Jill Biden, now the first lady, will mark the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by delivering remarks at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania accompanied by Jacobs. The 40 passengers and crew aboard that United Airlines flight fought back against their hijackers, thwarting a feared attack on the US Capitol in Washington. I called Bonny to se

US warns of possible retaliation after killing of Al-Qaeda's al-Zawahiri

In a Worldwide Caution Update, the department said it believed "there is a higher potential for anti-American violence given the death of Ayman al-Zawahiri on July 31, 2022"

Joe Biden frees $7 billion in Afghan assets for relief, 9/11 victims

President Joe Biden signed an order Friday to free $7 billion in Afghan assets now frozen in the US.

'Fortress USA': How 9/11 attacks produced a military industrial juggernaut

The American state has always relied on force combined with the de-personalisation of its victims, writes Clare Corbould.

Al-Qaida chief appears in new video marking 20th anniversary of 9/11 attack

Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri appeared in a new video marking the 20th anniversary of the Sept 11, attacks, months after rumours spread that he was dead

September 11 and the debacle of 'nation-building' in Iraq and Afghanistan

Nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq was the resurrection of a doctrine that should have been buried after Vietnam.

World Trade Center: A selfie stop for some, a cemetery for others

Twenty years after terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center, the memorial at ground zero has its own routine, not much different from many city tourist sites.

How 9/11 attack and coronavirus pandemic hit civil aviation industry

In late 2001, after the Twin Towers fell, the aviation industry experienced many of the problems it is seeing now. Airlines bled

On 20th anniversary of 9/11 attacks, America is an unreliable superpower

The US was still riding high in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War in 2000. Today, it is one major power among many.

19 years of 9/11 attacks: Some lesser known facts

The ultimate target of Flight 93 remains one of the biggest mysteries of 9/11

Pakistan PM Imran Khan calls 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden a martyr

"I don't think there's a country which supported the war on terror and had to face embarrassment for it. Pakistan was also openly blamed for US' failure in Afghanistan," Khan said