After learning about the other attacks, passengers on the fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, fought back, and the plane was crashed into an empty field in western Pennsylvania about 20 minutes by air from Washington, D.
The Twin Towers ultimately collapsed, due to the damage from the impacts and subsequent fires. Nearly 3, people were killed from 93 different countries. Most of the fatalities were from the attacks on the World Trade Center. The Pentagon lost civilians and servicemembers and 40 people were killed on Flight It was the worst attack on American soil since the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in After the Taliban refused to turn over the mastermind of the attacks, Osama Bin Laden, Operation Enduring Freedom officially began 7 October with American and British bombing strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
Initially, the Taliban was removed from power and al Qaeda was seriously crippled, but allied forces continually dealt with a stubborn Taliban insurgency, infrastructure rebuilding, and corruption among the Afghan National Army, Afghan National Police, and Afghan Border Police.
Bin Laden would go into hiding for nearly 10 years. On 2 May , U. Operation Enduring Freedom officially ended 28 December , although coalition forces remained on the ground to assist with training Afghan security forces. American troops departed Afghanistan in August In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on 11 September, the Department of Defense and all of the branches of the Armed Forces began efforts to document the attacks.
The Navy Archives has received permission to release a portion of the oral histories to the public for the first time since they were recorded. The oral histories that have been authorized for release can be found at the link above.
The oral histories document the experiences of Navy personnel in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island on the day of the attacks and in the days and weeks following. The oral histories in this collection offer overlapping and complementary perspectives. A clock, frozen at the time of impact, sat on a desk inside the Pentagon following the terrorist attack on 11 September Photo by Air Force Staff Sgt.
Larry A. National Archives identifier, President George W. Photo by Eric Draper. Courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library. The black walkway is the Flight Path Walkway. The Flight Path Overlook is beyond the second set of walls. National Park Service photograph. Emergency response teams responded to the Pentagon following a terrorist attack on 11 September Photo by the FBI. Smoke and flames in the Washington, DC, skyline in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the Pentagon, 11 September Flight 93 impact crater with debris taken early in the investigation near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Department of Justice photograph. Hijackers deliberately flew civilian airliners into the buildings, killing themselves, the passengers, and thousands on the ground, 11 September There is no evidence that this sentiment has faded during the past five years. Under George W. While this military venture and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan initially enjoyed strong public backing, support eroded as the wars on the ground went on longer than expected. It took another decade, spanning three presidents, to honor their wishes.
Too often, the United States repeated past patterns of behavior in not using foreign assistance and other related tools effectively to achieve U.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq removed authoritarian rulers from power and produced a qualified and tenuous sense of freedom in those countries that remained vulnerable to many security threats and challenges. The costs of these wars to these societies, America, and other coalition partners were substantial. But one gain that will endure are new generations of Afghans and Iraqis born after the start of these wars and who grew up in imperfect but more open societies.
This new generation has shown a desire for positive change, as witnessed by the numerous waves of protest movements in Iraq in recent years and the continued participation in an open but imperfect electoral system. And while recent events in Afghanistan cast a dark shadow on these generational gains, Afghan youth—and women who had access to education and leadership roles—will likely make it more difficult for the Taliban to reimpose an old order.
It is difficult to capture the costs to human life in a wide range of efforts over two decades in dozens of countries. A further 1. Furthermore, American allies and coalition partners lost 1, troops killed in action in Iraq, Afghanistan, and military counterterrorism operations elsewhere. In addition, 18 American diplomats and aid workers were killed Middle East and South Asia since September 11, including seven in Iraq and three in Afghanistan. Twenty United Nations diplomats and workers were killed in attacks on UN facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan in and At least 10 diplomats from allied or coalition partner nations including Japan , Romania , the United Arab Emirates , Turkey , and Egypt were also killed in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two decades.
However, it remains difficult to calculate precise numbers of those killed and wounded due to gaps and uncertainties in reporting. This figure represents about 2. These direct war and reconstruction costs amounted to less than 1 percent of overall GDP.
In the international system, new transnational challenges such as pandemics and cybersecurity emerged, and state competitors such as China and Russia adopted more assertive stances in the global arena. As America focused on the battle against terrorist networks, the broader global landscape shifted. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, for instance, stopped production of the F Raptor stealth fighter in part because he saw it as useless in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Moreover, after decades of gains for freedom in the world beginning from the late s, the tide started to turn in and around During the ensuing years—roughly over the past decade and a half—the world has witnessed stagnation and declines in political rights and civil liberties worldwide.
The extremist ideologies that were present 20 years ago have evolved, taken on different forms, and spread across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
Globally, the fight against Salafi-jihadi terrorism presents a mixed picture. Likewise, the Islamic State group was deprived of its territorial control by a U. Terrorist groups motivated by this ideology have killed thousands in sub-Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region over the past two decades, including the Bali bombing and Mumbai hotel siege that left hundreds dead.
The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban following the U. The Taliban will likely provide safe harbor to al-Qaida and other Salafi-jihadi terrorist groups moving forward, and the U. As with the rise of the Islamic State group, it could give Salafi-jihadism an infusion of new energy. Chronic instability and a lack of effective governance in key parts of the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa leaves countries vulnerable to nonstate threats. This is not a necessary consequence of the past 20 years of U.
Rather, it was a preexisting condition that did not improve. Even in the early stages of the U. Throughout the fall of , more Americans said the best way to prevent future terrorism was to take military action abroad rather than build up defenses at home. Initially, the public was confident that the U. Support for the war in Afghanistan continued at a high level for several years to come.
Only two-in-ten said it was the wrong decision. The share favoring a speedy troop withdrawal increased over the next few years. A turning point came in May , when U. Over the next decade, U. Meanwhile, public support for the decision to use force in Afghanistan, which had been widespread at the start of the conflict, declined.
Today, after the tumultuous exit of U. Throughout the contentious, yearlong debate before the U. As with the case with U. Since then, sizable majorities have continued to cite that as a top policy priority. Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats have consistently ranked terrorism as a top priority over the past two decades, with some exceptions. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents have remained more likely than Democrats and Democratic leaners to say defending the country from future attacks should be a top priority.
In recent years, the partisan gap has grown larger as Democrats began to rank the issue lower relative to other domestic concerns. The only time when concerns were elevated was in February , shortly before the start of the U. This declined to about four-in-ten from to Last year, only a quarter of Americans said that terrorism was a very big problem. This year, prior to the U.
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