In the years that followed the terrorist attacks, Muslim Americans faced intense suspicion and discrimination. Here, Kausam Salam, Zainab Johnson, Sabiha Hussain, Mehdi Hasan and Jaime 'Mujahid' Fletcher reflect on the events of that day – and how stereotypes, disinformation and the 'war on terror' changed their everyday lives
Continue reading...Category Archives: September 11 2001
‘Running didn’t even occur to me’: Gulnara Samoilova on photographing 9/11
‘A cop asked me: “How can you take photographs?” I told him: “I have to document this. It’s history”’
I was asleep when the first plane hit. At the time, I lived just four blocks from the World Trade Center, right next to a hospital, a fire station and the HQ of the New York police. The sirens woke me up. They were nonstop. I turned on the television and saw one of the towers on fire. As I watched the second plane hit the south tower on TV, I also heard it because I lived so close.
I was working for Associated Press (AP) as a photo editor. I knew, as their closest staff member, that I should go out and document it. I got dressed, threw some film into my camera bag, and ran out to the World Trade Center. A lot of photography is like muscle memory. Even in a situation like this, your body knows exactly what to do. I remember a cop asking me: “How can you take photographs?” I told him: “I have to document this. It’s history.”
Continue reading...Far-right terror poses bigger threat to US than Islamist extremism post-9/11
Since the 9/11 attack, far-right extremists killed more people in the US than did American-based Islamist fundamentalists
Donald Trump’s presidency was bookended with two of the ugliest outbursts of white nationalist violence in 21st century America – the 2017 far-right rally in Charlottesville and the 2021 storming of the US Capitol by his extremist supporters to sabotage the election results.
Rightwing apologists like to downplay these lethal events or dismiss them as aberrations, but experts warn this is a form of terrorism that’s not only entrenched but has ballooned to become the biggest domestic security threat in the US.
Continue reading...Islamism remains first-order security threat to west, says Tony Blair
In speech marking 20 years since 9/11 attacks, former British PM warns that non-state actors may turn to bio-terrorism
The west still faces the threat of 9/11-style attacks by radical Islamist groups but this time using bio-terrorism, Tony Blair has warned.
Blair also challenges the US president, Joe Biden, by urging democratic governments not to lose confidence in using military force to defend and export their values.
Continue reading...Close to home: how US far-right terror flourished in post-9/11 focus on Islam
The far right and white supremacists are responsible for the vast majority of extremist-related fatalities but only a fraction of counter-terrorism resources are devoted to them
The US government acted quickly after 9/11 to prevent further attacks by Islamic extremists in the US. Billions of dollars were spent on new law enforcement departments and vast powers were granted to agencies to surveil people in the US and abroad as George W Bush announced the war on terror.
But while the FBI, CIA, police and the newly created Department of Homeland Security scoured the country and the world for radicalized Muslims, an existing threat was overlooked – white supremacist extremists already in the US, whose numbers and influence have continued to grow in the last two decades.
Continue reading...‘Images were suddenly powerless’: how the arts responded to 9/11
On the 20th anniversary of the attack on New York’s Twin Towers, we consider how artists, writers, film-makers and comedians have attempted to grasp that momentous day and it’s legacy
As the world clustered, transfixed, around television screens, watching and rewatching footage of a plane gliding into the top of New York’s twin towers and a tiny, anonymous man plummeting to earth, another scene was unfolding on the ground, as panic-stricken families stumbled through the smoke and rubble to gather up their children from schools and kindergartens.
Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly stood four blocks away with their daughter, watching the second tower fall “in excruciatingly slow motion”. As art director of the New Yorker magazine, Mouly knew that she would have to come up with a rapid response. “I felt that images were suddenly powerless to help us understand what had happened. The only appropriate solution seemed to be to publish no cover image at all – an all-black cover. Then Art suggested adding the outlines of the two towers, black on black. So from no cover came a perfect image, which conveyed something about the unbearable loss of life, the sudden absence in our skyline, the abrupt tear in the fabric of reality,” she later recalled.
Continue reading...Joe Biden tells FBI to release files on 9/11 investigation – and possible Saudi links
• Order responds to call by victims’ families suing Riyadh
• Full record to be released over six months after review
Joe Biden has announced the wholesale review and declassification of files from the investigation into the 9/11 attack, in response to intense pressure from Congress and victims’ families currently suing Saudi Arabia.
Related: ‘A horn blew when human remains were found’: Wim Wenders’ six hours in the hell of Ground Zero
Continue reading...Why is Spike Lee’s 9/11 docuseries so controversial?
His new HBO series has been re-edited after backlash over featuring 9/11 ‘truthers’ – but a thread of distrust remains
Spike Lee is no stranger to controversy, but pre-emption is new for him. His incendiary work has inspired scandals both righteous (Do the Right Thing frightened a complacent America with its vision of urban unrest) and regrettable (the Jewish club owners in Mo’ Better Blues attracted charges of antisemitism), and now, his new docuseries NYC Epicenters 9/11 —> 2021½ has landed him in the same hot water that never seems to cool.
Related: Two decades after 9/11, the real threat to the US is our own far right | Harsha Panduranga
Continue reading...‘Is this justice?’: why Sudan is facing a multibillion-dollar bill for 9/11
The families of some 9/11 victims are still pursuing compensation from those complicit in the attacks – but is Sudan, already ravaged by years of US sanctions, really the right target?
Five months after the terrorist strikes by al-Qaida on 11 September 2001, a lawyer named Ron Motley received a phone call from Deena Burnett, whose husband had been killed in the attack. Thomas Burnett, she explained, had been on one of the hijacked planes. She wanted to ask whether he would help her to find a way to sue those responsible for the attack that claimed her husband.
Two weeks after the call, on 2 March 2002, Motley and a team of lawyers with his firm, Motley Rice, spent a day with the Burnett family at their home in California. They described how, upon realising the plane had been taken over for a suicide mission, Thomas Burnett had led the charge on the cockpit on flight 93. He and his fellow passengers managed to divert the plane from its target – the White House. The cockpit flight recorder captured his now-famous last words before they stormed the hijackers: “We’re going in!” Shortly after, the plane crashed, killing all 44 people on board. Burnett was 38 years old.
Continue reading...Life after terror: the children of 9/11
Twenty years after the World Trade Center attacks, four young people, then unborn, who lost their fathers, reveal how the events shaped their lives
Like for most young Americans growing up, 9/11 was a fairly constant presence, with online videos and TV documentaries, memorials and references to it on the news. I never wanted to ask Mum too much, instead putting the pieces together as I got older. I think I always knew my dad had died that day, but I’ve never felt a hugely emotional reaction. I know the basics of what happened, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.
Continue reading...FBI offer to release some Saudi files not enough, 9/11 families say
Victims’ families demand comprehensive declassification review of all documents, particularly into Saudi Arabia’s role in attacks
Families of 9/11 victims say an FBI offer to release some documents from its investigation into the attack has not gone far enough, and are demanding a comprehensive declassification review of all relevant material, particularly on Saudi Arabia’s role.
The FBI offer on Monday followed a call by some victims’ families and first responders for Joe Biden to stay away from ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the attack next month, if the president failed to honour a campaign pledge to lift the secrecy surrounding the multi-agency investigations.
Continue reading...Only man convicted over 9/11 says he is renouncing terrorism and Bin Laden
- Zacarias Moussaoui serving life sentence in US federal prison
- Prosecutors said Moussaoui lied to FBI about knowledge of plot
The only man ever convicted in a US court for a role in the 9/11 attacks has said he is renouncing terrorism, al-Qaida and the Islamic State.
Related: 'You lost, I won,' Moussaoui tells America as jury spares 9/11 plotter death penalty
Continue reading...‘You ruined my premiere!’: Beckinsale recalls Weinstein’s obscenity-filled rant
Kate Beckinsale claims disgraced movie mogul was enraged when she wore white suit rather than ‘tight dress’ to New York premiere shortly after 9/11
Kate Beckinsale has described an obscenity-filled rant by Harvey Weinstein in which he allegedly called her “stupid fucking cunt” after he objected to her choice of outfit for a film premiere in 2001.
In a post on social media, Beckinsale outlined events after a screening for the romcom Serendipity, in which she starred opposite John Cusack. She said Weinstein insisted on holding the premiere only a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, calling it “the most insensitive, tone deaf, disrespectful idea possible”. Beckinsale said Weinstein had arranged for her to visit his home with her two-year-old daughter, and then launched a tirade at her when they were alone.
Continue reading...Guantánamo: psychologists who designed CIA torture program to testify
- Techniques included waterboarding and other forms of torture
- Hopes that trial will cast more light on scale of program
The two psychologists who designed the US “enhanced interrogation” programme that included waterboarding and other forms of torture, are due to give evidence in open court for the first time this week.
James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen will answer questions at a pre-trial hearing on the 9/11 attacks before a military tribunal in Guantánamo Bay.
Continue reading...‘Wake up and face facts’ : Greta Thunberg pleads with politicians to lead fight against climate crisis – as it happened
- The Swedish teen activist made clear her disapproval of Trump leaving the Paris climate agreement
- The Guardian is joining forces with more than 250 news outlets to strengthen coverage of the climate crisis ahead of the UN summit. Read more about Covering Climate Now.
That’s it from the Liveblog for today.
Writer (and occasional Guardian columnist) Roxane Gay has endorsed Massachusetts senator, democratic presidential candidate and selfie enthusiast Elizabeth Warren for president, joining the progressive group Working Families Party -- which endorsed Warren’s challenger Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Shoutout to our #WCW, @rgay. We’re grateful that you’re in this fight with #TeamWarren. ✨ pic.twitter.com/5YEkyrCn8X
Continue reading...Edward Snowden on 9/11 and why he joined the army: ‘Now, finally, there was a fight’
In an extract from his memoir, the US whistleblower shares his experiences on the day the twin towers fell – and the aftermath that led him to join up
Whenever I try to understand how the past two decades happened, I return to that September – to that ground-zero day and its immediate aftermath. To return means coming up against a truth darker than the lies that tied the Taliban to al-Qaeda and conjured up Saddam Hussein’s illusory stockpile of WMDs. It means, ultimately, confronting the fact that the carnage and abuses that marked my young adulthood were born not only in the executive branch and the intelligence agencies, but also in the hearts and minds of all Americans, myself included.
I started working as a web designer for a woman I met in community college class. She, or I guess her business, hired me under the table at the then lavish rate of $30 an hour in cash. The trick was how many hours I would actually get paid for.
Continue reading...New Zealand firefighters perform haka to pay tribute to 9/11 first responders – video
Firefighters in New Zealand have paid tribute to the first responders to the September 11 attacks in New York by performing the haka, a ceremonial Māori dance, in honour of the victims. The video was shared on social media by the US ambassador to New Zealand, Scott Brown, who wrote: 'An appropriate and uniquely Kiwi way to remember the bravery and sacrifice of 9/11 first responders'
Continue reading...Trial for five men charged with planning 9/11 to start in 2021, 20 years after attack
US charged the five with war crimes that include terrorism, hijacking and nearly 3,000 counts of murder for their alleged roles
A military judge has set a trial date for five men held at Guantánamo Bay and facing the death penalty for their alleged role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks – nearly 20 years after the atrocities took place.
Judge Col W Shane Cohen set a start date of early 2021 in an order setting motion and evidentiary deadlines on Friday. The five defendants include Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a senior al-Qaida figure who has portrayed himself as the mastermind of the 11 September 2001 attacks and other terrorist plots.
Continue reading...Luis Alvarez, September 11 first responder and campaigner, dies at 53
- Ex-detective spent three months at World Trade Center site
- Appearance in Congress was followed by hospice interviews
Luis Alvarez, a former New York City police detective who was a leader in the fight for proper support of the September 11th victim compensation fund has died. He was 53.
Related: Jon Stewart demands Congress act for 9/11 responders: 'They did their jobs – do yours'
Continue reading...American who fought for Taliban to be freed early from US prison
John Walker Lindh to be released but some politicians say he may still be security risk
John Walker Lindh, the American captured in 2001 fighting for the Taliban, is to be released early from federal prison despite some US politicians expressing concerns he may still be a security risk.
Lindh, photographed as a bearded 20-year-old when captured in Afghanistan, will leave a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, on probation on Thursday after serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence, according to a prison official.
Continue reading...