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.
Hostage Rescue Team
Some higher-profile cases include the Waco siege; Ruby Ridge; the capture of the suspected masterminds of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Africa; the rescue following the 2013 abduction of a five-year-old boy in Alabama; the hostage rescue operations of prison guards at Talladega, Alabama, and St. Martinville, Louisiana; and the January 29, 2016 confrontation with militants involved in the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. On April 19, 2013, the Hostage Rescue Team arrested a man in Watertown, Massachusetts, after a manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of two perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15. HRT rescued a teenager by killing her abductor on August 10, 2013. HRT rescued kidnap victim Frank Arthur Janssen. The HRT assisted in the capture of Eric Frein, the sole suspect in the 2014 Pennsylvania State Police barracks attack. The FBI HRT was deployed to the 2016 Republican National Convention and the 2016 Democratic National Convention