2002 State of the Union Address
Bush spoke about the September 11 attacks of the previous year that killed thousands of people in New York City, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The Islamist terrorist organization al-Qaeda carried out the attack with 19 hijackers that took over four commercial airline flights and crashed them into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers in New York City's Lower Manhattan, and into the Pentagon in Virginia's Arlington County.
History of the Middle East
One of these Arab militants was a wealthy Saudi Arabian named Osama bin Laden. After fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, he formed the al-Qaida organization, which was responsible for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, the USS "Cole" bombing and the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The September 11 attacks led the George W. Bush administration to invade Afghanistan in 2001 to overthrow the Taliban regime, which had been harbouring Bin Laden and al-Qaida. The United States and its allies described this operation as part of a global "War on Terror".