War in Afghanistan (2001–present)
On the morning of 11 September 2001, a total of 19 Arab men—15 of whom were from Saudi Arabia—carried out four coordinated attacks in the United States. Four commercial passenger jet airliners were hijacked. The hijackers – members of al-Qaeda's Hamburg cell – intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and more than 2,000 people in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours from damage related to the crashes, destroying nearby buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, in rural Pennsylvania, after some of its passengers and flight crew attempted to retake control of the plane, which the hijackers had redirected toward Washington, D.C., to target the White House, or the U.S. Capitol. No one aboard the flights survived. According to the New York State Health Department, the death toll among responders including firefighters and police was 836 as of June 2009. Total deaths were 2,996, including the 19 hijackers.
Eleanor J. Hill
According to U.S. State Department cable of February 2010, released by WikiLeaks in 2011, the FBI has investigated another suspect, Mohammed al-Mansoori, who had associated with three Qatari citizens who had flown from Washington to London on the eve of the attacks, after allegedly surveying the World Trade Center and the White House. U.S. law enforcement officials said that the information about the four men was "just one of many leads that were thoroughly investigated at the time and never led to terrorism charges". An official added, however, that the three Qatari citizens have never been questioned by the FBI. Eleanor Hill, the former staff director for the congressional joint inquiry on the September 11 attacks, said the cable reinforces questions about the thoroughness of the FBI's investigation. She also said that the inquiry concluded that the hijackers had a support network that helped them in different ways. The three Qatari men were booked to fly from Los Angeles to Washington on Sept. 10, 2001, on the same plane that was hijacked and piloted into the Pentagon on the following day, but did instead fly from Los Angeles to Qatar, via London. While the cable states that Mansoori would be currently under investigation, U.S. law enforcement officials said that was no active investigation of him or of the Qatari citizens mentioned in the cable.