On the morning of September 11, 2001 at about 8:45 a.m., a hijacked passenger jet, American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston, Massachusetts, crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center tearing an immense hole in the building and setting it afire. Unexpectedly 15 minutes after the first plane had crashed, a second hijacked airliner, United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston, crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Also, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. United Airlines Flight 93, also hijacked, never reached its destination in Washington, D.C. The planned attack on the White House was thwarted when passengers on the plane confronted the terrorist and caused the plane to crash in a field in Pennsylvania. Immediately and for the first time in U.S. history, air traffic nation wide had been halted. Nearly three thousand people were killed in these attacks.

This tragic event was planned and financed by Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and was just one step in his proclaimed "Holy War" against the United States and its allies. Bin Laden believed that the Muslim world should unite in this war against the United States and hoped that the September 11th actions would provoke the U. S. into retaliating thus giving cause for the Muslim nations to band together in a world wide effort to destroy the United States. Bin Laden's reportedly justified this attack by saying that it was in retaliation for the U.S.'s support of Israel, its role in the Persian Gulf War and its continued presence in the Middle East. He was also angered by the United States support of efforts against Muslims in Somalia, Chechnya and Kashmir.

There are those who believe that Bin Laden was so opposed to the United States that this attack was perpetrated to carry through on his promise to " destroy and bankrupt" the United States and the targets chosen would