4th Anniversary of terrorist attack on World Trade Center

WTC on fire, originally uploaded by Jeevan_.

The September 11, 2001 attacks were a series of coordinated attacks carried out against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. According to the official 9/11 Commission Report, nineteen men affiliated with al-Qaeda, a network of militant Islamist organizations, hijacked four American airliners. Two were crashed into the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City one into each of the two tallest towers, about 17 minutes apart shortly after which both towers collapsed. The third aircraft crashed into the U.S. Department of Defense headquarters, the Pentagon, in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed into a rural field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, 80 miles east of Pittsburgh, following passenger resistance.

The 9/11 Commission reports that these attackers turned the hijacked planes into the largest suicide bombs in history and the most lethal acts ever carried out in the United States. The September 11th attacks are arguably the most significant events to have occurred so far in the 21st century in terms of the profound economic, social, cultural and military effects that followed in the United States and many other parts of the world.


The militant Islamist group al-Qaeda, which had been involved in several previous attacks on American targets, praised the attacks and its leaders hinted at their involvement in the incidents. Osama bin Laden had earlier declared a jihad against the United States. Shortly after the attacks, the United States government declared al-Qaeda and bin Laden the prime suspects.

New York authorities have ended efforts to identify victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, leaving the remains of nearly half the 2,749 people killed in the World Trade Center unidentified. Estimated total of deaths and injured is 3400.
We all should pray for the people who had died on 9/11.

September 11 has come to be identified with the infamous terrorist acts perpetrated against the U.S. on that day in 2001. But there is much more to it from the perspective of peace than terrorism.

It was on this day in 1906 that Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of non-violence, launched the peace movement against the South African Government.

Swami Vivekananda delivered his historical address in Chicago on September 11 in 1893, bringing to fore the concept of universal brotherhood. The Bhoodan Movement leader Vinoba Bhave was born on the day in 1895. It also happens to be the memorial day of Tamil poet and freedom fighter Subramaniya Bharathi. Viewed against this background, the 9/11 terror attacks seem a blot on what otherwise could be called a `peace day.