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.
King Fahad Mosque (Culver City, California)
According to FBI documents and a CIA memo noted in a congressional report into the attacks of September 11, 2001, the hijackers Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi may have been in contact with Saudi diplomat Shaykh al-Thumairy, who was the chief imam at the King Fahad Mosque (most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals and several were not fluent in English and had little experience living in the West). According to the congressional report, the mosque was identified by the FBI as a site of “extremist-related activity both before and after September 11”. According top the commission, “several subjects of FBI investigations prior to September 11 had close connections to the mosque and are believed to have laundered money through this mosque to nonprofit organizations overseas affiliated with Usama Bin Ladin.”