“Honey, there's been a terrible tragedy.”

Where We Were

“Tell them there’s been a terrible tragedy and lots of people have died and that we need to pray for the victims and for their families and for the horrible people who would do this."

I gathered the kids around me. Kneeling in the upstairs hall, I told them that some bad people had crashed planes into some big buildings in New York and Washington. I told them lots of people had died.

By Anne Albright, Sept. 27, 2001 | Read full article

Nawaf Alhamzi, Khalid al-Midhar, and Hani Hanjour tried to get more from exotic dancers. "We may not be nuns, but Kerry and I aren't alley-cat sluts."

Terror party

The Sunday People, a London tabloid, is out with what it says is a true account of the local strip-club revels of Khalid al-Midhar, Nawaf Alhamzi, and Hani Hanjour, the three terrorist hijackers with San Diego connections. According to the paper, the trio "blew at least $15,000 of terrorist funds in dozens of strip bars in San Diego.

By Matt Potter, Sept. 27, 2001 | Read full article

No One Knew I Had a Knife in My Pocket

Flynn said that before the events of 11 September security was geared toward what experience had taught: hijackers normally wanted something in return for freeing the passengers. Perhaps it was money, freedom for imprisoned comrades, publicity for a cause, or a combination of such goals. The hijackers would have to land at some point to close the deal. The pilot’s job was to placate the hijackers and get on the ground as soon as safely possible.

By Bill Salisbury, Sept 27, 2001 | Read full article

In Case They Attack

“I’ve been melancholy. It made me very sad. Deep-down sad. I realized immediately that our lives would never be the same again.

“We’ve never had war on our shores. And I’ve always felt that’s a lot of what we’re resented for. War has always been on someone else’s shores, and we’ve been safe.

“But it’s deeper than that. The sadness, to me, is that a lot of joy was taken away from us."

By Patrick Daugherty, Dec. 20, 2001 | Read full article

Some ascribe the lack of action to the carelessness of the post-Cold War era.

Photo by Joe Klein

How to Make Big Money in Bio-Warfare

After the attack on the World Trade Center, Downing was quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer as saying, about plans to take out Osama bin Laden, "We've been prepared to do this kind of thing for years. But they have always been rejected as too aggressive. A lot of solutions have been proposed, too, but they were all rejected, dismissed as too extreme or too dangerous. So what we end up with is something ten times as bad as Pearl Harbor."

By Matt Potter, Sept. 27, 2001 | Read full article

Adib Mahdi and Abdur-Rahim Hameed. Mahdi is concerned about the expression of widespread fear of Muslims that has followed the terrorist attacks.

Photo by Joe Klein

Atrocious Act

“This was an atrocious act! It is written in the Koran that Islam is a religion of peace and that a Muslim is one who submits his will to the will of the Creator, to Allah. And Allah does not command us to murder women and children, to kill innocent people. No! Submission to the will of Allah means to follow what is natural in life. Everything in nature follows the will of Allah.”

By Jangchup Phelgyal, March 7, 2002 | Read full article