9/11 anniversary: Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri calls for attacks
As the world marks the 18th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, a chilling video has emerged of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri. SEE THE NEW PHOTOS
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Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri has called on Muslims to attack US, European, Israeli and Russian targets in a speech to mark the 18th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
Multiple intelligence and terrorism monitoring services intercepted the video, in which Zawahri condemns the “backtrackers” from jihad, referring to former jihadis who changed their views in prison.
“If you want Jihad to be focused solely on military targets, the American military has presence all over the world, from the East to the West,” he said. “Your countries are littered with American bases, with all the infidels therein and the corruption they spread.”
Alongside ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, Zawahri is one of the two most wanted men in the world – both have a $25 million U.S. bounty on their heads.
Egyptian-born Zawahri, 67, took the reins as Al Qaeda’s leader after the death of the group’s long-running mastermind, Osama bin Laden, more than eight years ago. He also comes with a long list of pseudonyms, including “The Doctor” and “The Teacher.”
His comments came as America marked the 18th anniversary of the worst terror attack on US soil.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed when terrorist-piloted commercial planes slammed into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Since that horrific day, a generation of young people have grown up knowing only a world where terrorism is a threat. Soon, they will be turning 18.
Dr Emil Chynn was one of the first on the scene in New York 18 years ago.
He was walking his dog when he saw the Twin Towers burning.
Having worked at a local hospital during a previous attack scare, Dr Chynn new he would be of more help to the people at the scene rather than wait at a hospital.
Here are the never-before-seen photos taken by Dr Chynn from ground zero.
Here are 18 shocking facts you should know about September 11 and how the day unfolded.
1. HOW THE ATTACKS UNFOLDED
Nineteen men hijacked four fuel-loaded US commercial planes bound for west coast destinations in the attack, which was orchestrated by Osama bin Laden.
A total of 2977 people were killed in New York City, Washington, DC and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The real death toll from the four co-ordinated attacks will never be known.
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2. THE ATTACK ON THE PENTAGON
At the Pentagon in Washington, 184 people were killed when hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the building.
Hijackers crashed United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville rather than their unknown target, killing 64 passengers and crew.
The heroic passengers — including Todd Beamer, famed for saying “Let’s roll” — attempted to retake control of the flight deck.
3. FIREFIGHTERS DIED WHILE SAVING LIVES
Of those who died during the initial attacks and the subsequent collapses of the towers, 343 were New York City firefighters, 23 were New York City police officers and 37 were officers at Manhattan’s Port Authority.
The victims ranged in age from two to 85 years.
Nearly 75 to 80 per cent of the victims were men, CNN reports.
4. UNITED FLIGHT 93’S MISSING HIJACKER
This is the only one of the four hijacked flights that did not strike its intended target.
This happened partly because the hijacker likely intended to round out the team for this flight, Mohamed al Kahtani, was refused entry by a suspicious immigration inspector at Florida’s Orlando International Airport in August, the 9/11 report said.
As the passengers were just seconds away from getting into the cockpit, the hijacker at the controls crashed the plane in an empty field in Shanksville, just 20 minutes flying time from Washington.
5. TRAGEDY OF THE ‘DUST LADY’
One of the most haunting images taken on the day was of the woman who became known as “the dust lady”.
When the World Trade Centre’s South Tower collapsed just before 10am, photographer Stan Honda was in Lower Manhattan, taking pictures of the incomprehensible scene.
“There was a giant roar, like a train, and between the buildings I could see huge clouds of smoke and dust billowing out,” Honda recalled years later.
He ducked into a building lobby, where “a police officer was pulling people into the entrance to get them out of the danger.”
“A woman came in completely covered in grey dust,” Honda recalled in 2011.
“You could tell she was nicely dressed for work and for a second she stood in the lobby. I took one shot of her before the police officer started to direct people up a set of stairs, thinking it would be safer off the ground level.”
The woman turned out to be Marcy Borders, who had only recently begun working for Bank of America in the World Trade Centre when the first plane struck.
Tragically, she became severely depressed and started smoking crack in the years after the attack.
She died of stomach cancer in 2015 at the age of 42 — “a difficult reminder of the tragedy our city suffered nearly 14 years ago,” New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio said at the time.
“NYC holds her loved ones in our hearts.”
6. THE WORLD TRADE CENTRE WAS TARGETED BEFORE
In February 1993, a bomb planted in a van in the centre’s underground parking garage killed six people and wounded more than 1000.
Ramzi Yousef, the Sunni extremist who planted the bomb, said later that he hoped to kill 250,000 people.
7. A FIREFIGHTER’S SUFFERING
Firefighter Richard “Richie” Nogan, a veteran with more than 20 years on the job, died of World Trade Centre-related illness in December 2014.
He responded to the first terrorist attack on the Towers in 1993 in addition to his recovery work after the attack of September 11, 2001.
Some of the most common conditions certified by the World Trade Centre Health Program are cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder, respiratory disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, depression and anxiety disorder.
News Corp photographer Nathan Edwards captured the heroic New Yorker covered in dust on the day of the attack.
Speaking at a memorial service for firefighters, Nogan’s daughter said her father worked with Ladder 113 in Flatbush and had 27 years on the force.
“He spent seven or eight months bringing out bodies. He couldn’t stop,” she said.
8. PHOTO SPARKED SEARCH FOR LOVED ONES
When photographer Nathan Edwards discovered a family photo in the rubble of the September 11 attacks on New York, it sparked an obsession: he needed to know if that mother and child were alive, and he needed to know who they were.
“Just to find that picture in the rubble when everything else was ground to dust — I guess it felt like a bit of a sign,” he said.
Reporter Sarah Blake and photographer Toby Zerna joined Nathan on an emotional journey back to the US and ground zero.
Discover the full, inspiring story in the video above.
9. MYSTERY OF HIJACKERS
The comprehensive report of the 9/11 commission said no one could determine how the hijackers were able to get into the cockpits of the four commercial airliners they hijacked.
A flight attendant on American Flight 11 “speculated that they had ‘jammed their way’ in,” the 9/11 report said.
“Perhaps the terrorists stabbed the flight attendants to get a cockpit key, to force one of them to open the cockpit door, or to lure the captain or first officer out of the cockpit.”
10. VICTIMS STILL NOT IDENTIFIED
As of July 2019, 1,644 (60 per cent) of the victims’ remains have been positively identified, according to the medical examiner’s office.
The unidentified remains of those killed in the attacks were returned to the World Trade Centre site where they will be kept in a repository under the jurisdiction of the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York.
Haunting and hidden facts about 9/11
September 11’s most haunting mystery
11. DEATHS RULED TO BE HOMICIDE
In May 2007, the Chief Medical Examiner of New York City ruled that the death of Felicia Dunn-Jones in 2002, from dust exposure, was directly linked to the attack and therefore a homicide.
The death of Leon Heyward, who died in 2008 from lymphoma and lung disease, was also ruled a homicide because he was caught in the toxic dust cloud just after the towers collapsed.
12. DEVASTATING LOSS OF THE INNOCENT
The number of children who lost a parent in the September 11 attacks was 3051.
Seventeen babies were subsequently born to women whose husbands died during the attacks. Nine months after the attacks, the number of births in New York City rose by 20 per cent compared to the same month in 2000.
13. MEMORIALS FROM THE RUBBLE
Hundreds of memorials have been made using steel from ground zero.
These include a cross in Shanksville, Philadelphia, where United Flight 93 crashed, made out of steel from the North Tower, and a Memory and Light monument in Padua, Italy.
14. THE NEVER-ENDING FIRES
It took the city’s heroic firefighters 100 days to put out all the blazes that had been ignited by the attacks.
15. THE ECONOMIC LOSS
The estimated economic loss during the first two to four weeks after the attacks was
$123 billion. Airline travel declined over the next few years. The damage to the site, surrounding buildings, infrastructure and subway facilities cost $60 billion.
16. ARTWORKS DESTROYED
The total value of art lost when the Twin Towers collapsed exceeded $100 million.
Items included Alexander Calder’s sculpture WTC Stabile, Joan Miro’s World Trade Centre Tapestry, a painting from Roy Lichtenstein’s Entablature series, and others by Picasso and David Hockney.
17. CLEAN-UP COST MILLIONS
The clean-up at ground zero officially ended on May 30, 2002.
It took 3.1 million hours of labour to clean up 1.8 million tons of debris at a cost of $750 million.
18. WE SHALL REMEMBER THEM
September 11 is now remembered as Patriot Day in the US in memory of those killed.
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