The 50 Worst Terrorist Attacks

by Edward Mickolus

  Circa 20,000 people were inside the WTC towers at the time of the attacks. Photos of the missing could be found throughout the streets of New York, taped onto walls, mailboxes, and telephone poles. The media ran dozens of biographies of the victims.

  American Airlines Flight 77. A B-757 headed from Washington’s Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles with 64 people, including 4 flight attendants and 2 pilots on board, was hijacked shortly after its 8:10 A.M. departure. The hijackers, armed with box cutters and knives, forced the passengers and crew to the back of the plane. Barbara K. Olson, a former federal prosecutor and prominent television commentator who was married to Solicitor General Theodore Olson; a Senate staffer; three DC school children; three teachers on an educational field trip; and a University Park family of four headed to Australia were ordered to call relatives to say they were about to die. The plane made a hairpin turn over Ohio and Kentucky and flew back to Washington, D.C., with its transponder turned off. It aimed full throttle at the White House but made a 270 degree turn at the last minute and crashed at 9:40 A.M. into the Pentagon in northern Virginia. The plane hit the helicopter landing pad adjacent to the Pentagon, sliding into the west face of the Pentagon near Washington Boulevard. The plane cut a 35-foot wedge through the building’s E, D, C, and B rings between corridors 4 and 5. A huge fireball erupted, as 30,000 pounds of jet fuel ignited. The federal government shut down within an hour; hundreds of local schools closed.

  Officials determined that 189 people, including all of the plane’s passengers and crew, died, and scores were wounded. Dozens of Pentagon employees were hospitalized. The Pentagon crash displaced 4,800 workers, destroying 4 million square feet of office space. Virginia’s economy took a $1.8 billion economic loss and a sharp increase in unemployment, including the loss of 18,700 jobs from the temporary closing of Reagan National Airport.

  The hijackers used the names Hani Hanjour, Majed Moqed, Nawaf Alhazmi, Salem M. S. Alhazmi, and Khalid al-Midhar. In January 2000, Nawaf Alhazmi and Midhar were videotaped meeting with operatives of the Osama bin Laden organization al Qaeda in Malaysia. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) put them on a watch list in August 2001, but the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and FBI were unable to find them.

  United Airlines Flight 93. A B-757–200 flying from Newark International Airport to San Francisco’s International Airport with 45 people, including 5 flight attendants and 2 pilots, was hijacked sometime after its 8:01 A.M. departure by terrorists armed with box cutters. At 9:31 A.M., the pilot’s microphone caught screaming as two men invaded the cockpit. A hijacker got on the microphone to tell the passengers, “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the captain. Please sit down. Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb aboard.” The hijackers subdued the pilots, then forced several passengers to phone their relatives to say they were about to die.

  Passengers saw two people lying motionless on the floor near the cockpit, with their throats cut. Passenger Jeremy Glick, a national judo champ, told his wife during a cell phone call that the passengers would go down fighting. He said the terrorists, wearing red headbands, had ordered everyone to the rear of the plane. Business executive Thomas Burnett Jr. said during four cell phone calls that the terrorists had stabbed and seriously injured one of the passengers. He later called to say that the passenger or pilot had died and that “a group of us are going to do something.” Todd Beamer indicated to a GTE colleague that the passengers were about to fight the terrorists, ending his conversation with “Let’s roll.” The plane made a hairpin turn over Cleveland and headed for Washington; some pundits believe that the plane was aiming at the White House. The plane crashed in Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania, midway between Camp David and Pittsburgh and 14 miles south of Johnstown, at 10:06 A.M., killing all on board. Air Force fighter pilots were ordered to down the plane if it neared Washington, believed to be its intended target.

  The hijackers were identified as Ziad Samir Jarrah, Ahmed Alnami, Ahmed Ibrahim A. al-Haznawi, and Saeed Alghamdi.

  Epilogue. U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies began the country’s most extensive investigation in history and quickly developed leads and detailed information about the hijackers and their supporters. Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda organization soon became the major suspect; bin Laden was linked to the previous bombing of the WTC on February 26, 1993. The hijackers were linked with those of several other hijackings that day. At least one hijacker on each plane received flight training in the United States, and several had received pilot’s licenses; others studied martial arts so that they could subdue the passengers.

  The United Nations listed 86 countries as having lost its citizens in the attacks.

  The monetary costs of the series of attacks were staggering. The American commercial airline system was grounded—for the first time in U.S. history—for several days, and many major airlines lobbied Congress for immediate assistance to prevent bankruptcy of the industry. On September 29, 2001, New York City officials estimated that cleanup and repair of WTC Ground Zero would cost $40 billion and take at least one year. That figure rose to $105 billion in early October 2001. The stock market lost $1.3 trillion in paper assets during the first week it was open after being closed the week of the attacks. The casualties were greater than those tallied from all international terrorist attacks recorded during the previous decade.

  The world responded with an outpouring of sympathy, holding candlelight vigils, leaving thousands of flowers in front of U.S. embassies, and sending donations. Paris Le Monde’s editorial observed, “T oday, we are all Americans.”

  The hijackers differed from the normal al Qaeda terrorists in Europe, who tended to be disaffected, poorly educated youths who lived in slums. Atta was a city planner; fluent in German, English, and Arabic; and who earned advanced degrees. German police tracked members of a cell created by the hijackers in Hamburg.

  On November 14, 2001, the FBI concluded that Yemeni economics student Ramzi Binalshibh was meant to be the fifth hijacker on flight 93. The FBI concluded that Zacarias Moussaoui was not to be the fifth hijacker, but may have been part of a wave of chemical–biological weapons attacks. Germany indicted fugitives Binalshibh, Said Bahaji, and Zakariya Essabar, part of an al Qaeda cell that operated in Hamburg since 1999. In 2004, the FBI also noted that Moshabab Hamlan, a Saudi, was meant to be a hijacker but lost his nerve.

  War on Terror. The coalition military retaliation began on October 7, 2001, around noon EDT, with U.S. and U.K. air strikes —principally cruise missiles —against command and control/radar air defense installations near Kabul, Herat, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif, Kunduz, and Kandahar. U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan a decade later. Czech officials confirmed on October 27, 2001, that Atta had contact with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, an Iraqi intelligence officer, on a trip to the Czech Republic earlier in the year. This news led members of the Bush administration to advocate the invasion of Iraq as part of the War on Terror.

  Key Prosecutions. On August 19, 2005, a German court convicted Mounir el-Motassadeq and sentenced him to seven years as a member of the Hamburg cell, but found him not guilty of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder in the 9/11 attack.

  On September 26, 2005, a Spanish court convicted and sentenced Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas to 27 years for conspiring with the hijackers.

  On April 4, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder dropped the Manhattan civilian court option for the 9/11 trial and announced that key figures Khalid Sheik Muhammad, Ramzi Binalshibh, Walid Muhammad bin Attash, Amar al-Baluchi, and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi would be tried before a Guantanamo Bay military commission. Charges included conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, intentionally causing bodily injury, destruction of property, terrorism, and material support for terrorism. As of late 2013, the accused were awaiting trial.

  Finale. On May 2, 2011, U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 raided a compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan, during the night and shot to death Osama bin Laden, whose body was given a Muslim funeral aboar
d the USS Carl Vinson before burial at sea.

  October 12, 2002

  Indonesia Bali Bombings

  Overview: Following the operational successes of the attacks against the U.S. African embassies, USS Cole, and 9/11 targets, radical Islamist groups were eager to establish some connection to the core al Qaeda leadership. Various types of relationships developed, including formal merger of a group with al Qaeda (as seen with Ayman al-Zawahiri’s joining of his Egyptian al-Jihad group to al Qaeda), franchises with formal bayat pledged to bin Laden (as seen with al Qaeda in Iraq, the Islamic Maghreb, and in the Arabian Peninsula), and affiliates in the Far East (including Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in Indonesia). JI conducted numerous attacks in the region, the most deadly of which were the Bali nightclub bombings. In the aftermath, Southeast Asian governments arrested most of the first generation of JI leaders.

  Incident: On October 12, 2002, at 11:10 p.m., two bombs exploded at the Sari Club and Paddy’s, two Bali nightclubs popular with foreign tourists, on Legian Street near Bali’s Kuta Beach strip, killing at least 202 people, including 88 Australians, 4 French citizens, and at least 7 Americans, and injuring more than 300.

  The first small bomb went off in front of Paddy’s disco. The second larger bomb was in a Toyota Kijang SUV in front of the Sari Club.

  Victims represented 21 nationalities—including Canadians, Britons, Germans, Swedes, New Zealanders, Norwegians, Italians, Swiss, and French— from six continents. Four Americans, seven French citizens, and at least five Britons were injured. JI terrorists were suspected. The blast shattered windows 400 yards away and set alight numerous cars. It left a hole 6 feet deep and 15 feet wide and destroyed 20 buildings.

  On October 17, 2002, local authorities summoned to Jakarta for questioning JI spiritual leader Abubakar Baasyir, 64. They wanted to discuss a series of church bombings by al Qaeda–linked militants. He collapsed and was hospitalized after a press conference. Jailed al Qaeda operative Omar al-Farouq told local investigators that Baasyir was involved in the bombings.

  On November 5, 2002, Indonesian authorities arrested two suspects. Two days later, police released composite sketches of four other suspects. Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, an East Javanese car repairman and the owner of the Mitsubishi L-300 minivan that exploded, said he was part of the group. He was arrested at an Islamic boarding school, Al Islam, in Lamongan, where he had attended a lecture by Baasyir. Amrozi said he was involved in the August 2000 remote-controlled bombing of Philippine ambassador Leonides Caday’s house in Jakarta. He said the Bali bombings were “revenge for what Americans have done to Muslims.” He said he was trying to kill as many Americans as possible and that the terrorists were unhappy that large numbers of Australians had died instead. Amrozi said he had met with Riduan Isamuddin (alias Hambali), the leader of JI and al Qaeda’s leader in the region. He said he was also involved in the bombing of the Jakarta stock exchange in 2000 that killed 15 people and the October 12, 2002, bombing of the Philippine Consulate in North Sulawesi.

  Amrozi claimed to have purchased a ton of ammonium chlorate in Surabaya, East Java. The seller was detained by police. Amrozi led police to a home in Denpasar, Bali, where explosive residue was found.

  Amrozi’s older brother, Mukhlas Amrozi (alias Ali Ghufron), was a JI operative wanted for the bombing. Police were seeking three other relatives, including two other brothers belonging to JI. Police believed Mukhlas was the Malaysia chief of JI and was involved in a failed plot to blow up pipelines that supply Malaysian water to Singapore. Younger brother Ali Imron was believed to have helped detonate the car bomb. Mukhlas attended an Islamic boarding school founded by Baasyir. Brother Ali Fauzi was also wanted in connection with the bombing. Brother Khozin founded Al Islam, the Islamic boarding school.

  On November 10, 2002, police detained Tafsir, whom they said had driven Amrozi in his Mitsubishi L-300 van to Bali.

  On November 11, 2002, Indonesian police arrested a forest ranger in Tenggulun, Komarudin, on suspicion of storing weapons and explosives for Amrozi. Police found two canisters, one of which contained five weapons, including two M-16s and an AK-47.

  Amrozi told police that Imam Samudra (alias Hudama) asked him to buy the chemicals to make the bomb.

  Meanwhile, police named four new suspects—Samudra, already in custody one, and three of his brothers (Umar, Idris, and another Umar), who remained at large. Amrozi claimed that he, Samudra, and another man named Martin met more than once in Solo, Java, to discuss the bomb plan. Amrozi said Idris gave him more than $5,000 in U.S., Singaporean, and Malaysian currency.

  On November 17, 2002, police said a computer engineer from West Java, Imam Samudra, was the ringleader. The radical intellectual had received arms training in Afghanistan. The JI member had helped build the bomb. In a meeting in central Java on August 8, 2002, he decided to target the Sari Club in hopes of killing Americans. Police said the man suspected of setting off the car bomb was Amar Usman (alias Dulmatin), an electronics expert from central Java. On November 22, 2002, police reported that Samudra had confessed to the Bali bombings a day after his arrest and had admitted involvement in the Christmas Eve 2000 church bombings. Police said two terrorist cells totaling a dozen people were involved. One group of militants, including Amrozi, from Lamongan in eastern Java set off the remote-detonation bombing of the Sari Club. Another group from Serang in western Java set off the smaller Paddy’s bar bomb, which involved a suicide bomber named Iqbal, who had an explosives-laden backpack. Samudra was following the directives of Mukhlas, an Islamic teacher and JI strategist and older brother of Amrozi.

  Mukhlas was arrested on December 3, 2002, and confessed to helping plan the Bali bombings.

  On January 14, 2003, two more suspects, including field coordinator Ali Imron, were arrested on Berukan Island in eastern Kalimantan Province.

  On January 28, 2003, Indonesian National Police chief Dai Bachtiar said that detained cleric Abubakar Baasyir had given a blessing to the “jihad operation” in Bali. Baasyir approved the plan that was developed by senior militants at a meeting in Bangkok in February 2002 to strike U.S. and other Western targets in Indonesia and Singapore. Bachtiar also said Hambali provided $35,000 to finance the attacks, giving the money to Malaysian operative Wan Min Wan Mat, who forwarded the funds to Mukhlas. Other Indonesian security officials believed the money came from Seyam Reda, a German held on immigration charges.

  On February 3, 2003, Indonesian police announced the arrest of JI members Mas Selamat Kastari, a Singaporean wanted in Singapore for participating in a hijacking plot, and Malaysian citizen Noor Din, who was suspected of helping plan the Bali bombings. Kastari had fled Singapore in December 2001 and planned to hijack a U.S., U.K., or Singaporean jet flying out of Bangkok and crash it into Singapore’s Changi Airport. Din was grabbed in Gresik on Java Island, where police seized an M-16 rifle and ammunition that belonged to Ali Imron.

  On February 21, 2003, the trial began of Silvester Tendean, the store owner accused of selling the chemicals used in the bombing.

  On March 11, 2003, the government announced that the August 1, 2000, car bombing of Philippine ambassador Leonides Caday’s home in Jakarta was carried out by the same JI terrorists accused in the Bali blasts. The government said the attack was ordered in July 2000 by Hambali during a meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Two of the terrorists were Amrozi, who purchased the Sari Club van, and Hutomo Pamungkas (alias Mubarok), who distributed the money that financed the attacks and helped assemble the Jakarta bomb. Amrozi purchased the explosives for the two attacks at a shop in Surabaya, East Java. Ali Imron was also indirectly involved in the Jakarta bombing, according to police. Philippine investigators said JI was trained by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) of the Philippines in the attack.

  On April 14, 2003, Indonesian prosecutors filed treason charges against Abubakar Baasyir.

  On April 23, 2003, the national police announced the arrests of 18 JI members, including Mohamad bin Abas (
alias Nasir Abbas), Malaysian leader of the Mantiqi 3 cell that operates in the southern Philippines and northern Indonesia. Three of them were linked to the Bali bombings. The Mantiqi 3 includes the Philippines, Brunei, eastern Malaysia, and Kalimantan and Sulawesi in Indonesia. It was based in Camp Abubakar, run by the MILF, before the Philippine military overran it in 2000. Police also arrested Abu Rusdan, who had been JI’s temporary leader.

  Baasyir’s trial began on April 23, 2003. He was charged in a 25-page indictment with involvement in church bombings on Christmas Eve 2000 that killed 19 people, a failed plot to bomb U.S. interests in Singapore, and a plot to assassinate President Megawati Sukarnoputri in 2001 when she was vice president. The government said Baasyir is JI’s leader. The charges carry a life sentence. He was not charged with the Bali bombings. On May 28, 2003, Ali Imron and Mubarok, both suspected of involvement in the Bali bombings, testified that they believed Baasyir was JI’s leader.

  On April 30, 2003, prosecutors charged Amrozi with buying the explosives and driving the van that exploded. The charges carry the death penalty.

  On June 26, 2003, Faiz bin Abu Bakar Bafana, 41, a Malaysian and treasurer of JI, told the court via teleconference from a Singapore jail that bin Laden had set in motion a series of plots that JI pursued in Singapore and Indonesia in 2000. Bafana said Baasyir approved of the planned attacks and appointed Mukhlas as an operations chief of JI; Mukhlas was charged with organizing the Bali bombings.

  On June 30, 2003, police arrested Idris, one of the organizers of the Bali bombing, who had also helped in a bank robbery on Sumatra to fund terrorist operations.

  On August 7, 2003, Amrozi was found guilty and sentenced to death.

  On September 2, 2003, Chief Judge Muhammad Saleh announced that an Indonesian court had convicted Baasyir of treason for involvement in the JI and attempting to overthrow the government, sentencing him to four years in prison. On December 1, 2003, an Indonesian appeals court overturned the treason charges and reduced Baasyir’s sentence from four to three years. He was cleared of charges of leading the JI. The court upheld his conviction of immigration violations. On March 9, 2004, the Indonesian Supreme Court further reduced Baasyir’s sentence, permitting him to go free by April 4, 2004. On March 3, 2005, Baasyir was sentenced to two and a half years for conspiracy for the Bali bombings. He was freed in June 2006.