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.
Motives for the September 11 attacks
The September 11, 2001, attacks in the northeast United States were an organized terrorist act carried out by 19 hijackers, and organized by numerous members of al-Qaeda. Motives for the attacks were stated before and after the attacks in several sources, Osama bin Laden's declaration of a holy war against the United States, and a fatwā signed by bin Laden and others for the killing of Americans in 1998, are seen by investigators as evidence of his motivation. However, in an interview with Daily Ummat, Osama bin Laden rejected Al-Qaeda's involvement in the September 11 attacks.