Posted on 09/11/2001 9:17:10 AM PDT by t-shirt
By Beth Gardiner
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001; 11:04 a.m. EDT
LONDON Astonishing terrorist strikes in the United States quickly reached a global audience Tuesday, with many around the world watching live coverage of an aircraft hitting the World Trade Center.
Audiences were transfixed by the awful images from New York, where both World Trade Center towers collapsed.
Key indexes sank on world stock markets and some European airlines canceled flights to the United States and recalled planes already in the air.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences to the American people over the terrorist attacks, calling the "terrible tragedies," the Kremlin press service said.
"This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world today," said Prime Minister Tony Blair, who canceled a speech at a trade union conference. "It is perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life, and we the democracies of this world are going to have to come together and fight it together."
President Jacques Chirac of France, in a nationally televised statement, called the attacks in the United States "monstrous" and expressed his solidarity with the American people.
"France has just learned of these monstrous attacks, there is no other word for it, that have hit America," Chirac said from Rennes, in the western region of Brittany.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his top aides followed the events at his seaside office in Gaza City, gathered around a TV set.
"I send my condolences to the president, the government and the people for this terrible incident," Arafat said. "We are completely shocked. It's unbelievable."
In Berlin, Foreign Ministry officials huddled in a crisis meeting, and Parliament's vice speaker vice speaker Anke Fuchs told lawmakers a "terrible catastrophe" had happened.
Virtually all German TV channels switched to live coverage. "This is pure mass murder," one commentator said.
Scandinavian Airlines System, SAS, rerouted three airplanes bound for New York and one for Washington from Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
Flights to the United States were suspended from Portugal, and the Belgian airline recalled two flights on the way to the United States, diverted others to Canada and canceled all planned flights to the United States.
In Thailand, Suranand Vejjajiva, a spokesman for the office of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said they were watching the news in disbelief.
A spokesman for Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said: "The president has been monitoring the events since an hour ago and she condemns what is obviously the worst terrorist attack on a leader of civilized society."
Broadcasters around the world broke into programming to show images of the disaster.
"It's incredible. I thought I was watching a Hollywood movie," said Hong Kong school teacher Doris Tang.
NEW YORK (AP) Planes crashed into the upper floors of both World Trade Center towers minutes apart Tuesday in a horrific scene of explosions and fires that left gaping holes in the 110-story building.
There was no immediate word on injuries or fatalities in the twin disasters, which happened shortly before 9 a.m. and then right around 9 a.m.
The FBI is investigating reports that two plane crashes at the World Trade Center are the result of foul play, The Associated Press has learned.
A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the agency is pursuing reports that one or both of the planes were hijacked and that the crashes may have been the result of a suicide mission.
The source stressed that the reports are preliminary and officials do not know the cause of the crashes.
``It certainly doesn't look like an accident,'' said a second government official, also speaking on condition of anonymity.
In Sarasota, Fla., President Bush was reading to children in a classroom at 9:05 a.m. when his chief of staff, Andrew Card, whispered into his ear. The president briefly turned somber before he resumed reading.
Asked what he knew about the planes, Bush replied, ``I'll talk about it later.''
The towers were struck by bombers in February 1993.
``The plane was coming in low and ... it looked like it hit at a slight angle,'' said Sean Murtagh, a CNN vice president, the network reported.
Large holes were visible in sides of the 110-story buildings, landmark twin towers.
``I was watching TV. and heard a sonic boom ...,'' witness Jeanne Yurman told CNN. ``The side of the world trade center exploded. Debris is falling like leaflets. I hear ambulances. The northern tower seems to be on fire.''
The tops of the twin towers were obscured by the smoke.
Thousands of pieces of what appeared to be office paper came drifting over Brooklyn, about three miles from the tower, one witness said.
The center bombing on Feb. 26, 1993, killing six people and injured more than 1,000 others.
In 1945, an Army Air Corps B-25, a twin-engine bomber, crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building in dense fog.
Here, are the friends of Bill and Hitlery who have helped to perpetrate this terrorism on our country!
DEATH TO ALL TERRORISTS!
It was heading from Newark to SF. It was either scheduled to make a stop in Pittsburgh, or was diverted here. The tower tried to contact the plane, and got no response. At the same time, Westmoreland County's 911 dispatcher received a phone call from a cell phone, a person in the tail bathroom of flight 93, saying that the flight had been hijacked, begging for help. There was then the sound of an explosion.
UPMC helicopters surveyed the wreckage. No survivors. This was in Sommerset County.
It would not surprise me if that one was shot down. Pittsburgh International is one of the airports where they are diverting all traffic to, so if this was as coordinated an attack as it appears to be, then trying to take out the airport makes sense.
BBC
Iraq claimed a similar "kill" last month Iraq says it has shot down a US spy plane over the south of the country.
The official Iraqi News Agency (INA) said the plane was brought down near the port city of Basra.
"Iraqi anti-aircraft fire in the region of Basra on Tuesday brought down an American spy plane," INA reported.
Maj. Brett Morris, spokesman for a US-British military task force in the Persian Gulf, told the Associated Press the coalition force had lost an unmanned aircraft on Tuesday similar to a US spy plane lost last month.
INA said the plane was shot down at 1130 local time (0730 GMT) and wreckage from the "highly advanced" plane was being collected.
The news agency quoted an unnamed Iraqi Air Defence Command official as saying: "The plane was coming from Kuwaiti territory and it was used to provide the American enemy with information concerning our installations, vital sites and our air-defence formations."
Second plane shot down If confirmed, it will be the second US spy plane shot down in Iraq in the past two weeks.
Iraq said its forces shot down an unmanned Predator plane in the Basra area, 560 kilometres (350 miles) south of Baghdad on 27 August.
The US Defense Department acknowledged losing a plane at that time but did not confirm the circumstances.
The United States and Britain frequently fly sorties over no-fly zones over north and south Iraq, imposed after the Gulf War.
Iraq refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the zones and has stepped up efforts to shoot down allied planes over the past few months.
September 11, 2001 9:51 am EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An explosion was reported outside the Pentagon Tuesday morning, witnesses said, shortly after two planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York in an apparent terrorist attack.
Smoke also was seen rising from an area near the Old Executive Office Building near the White House. The Pentagon and the U.S. Treasury building, which also is near the White House, were being evacuated.
http://www.iwon.com/home/news/news_article/0,11746,163558|top|09-11-2001::09:49|reuters,00.html
From a friend in NYC: >I just tired calling you...but i can't get through anywhere- NY, DC- it is >hard to even find out if my friends and family are ok- they have suspended >the primary elections, suspended the trains and buses, closed all bridges >and tunnels- we are being told to evacuate the city but no one even knows >where to go- i can see smoke from my building and I live all the way on >110th street- NSA and CIA -- their complexes are miles outside of Washington DC proper -- have been evacuated. From an NSAer: "I want to know as a member of the intelligence community how the fuck we didn't see this happening." -Declan ********** From: John Young <jya@PIPELINE.COM> Subject: New York Report Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 11:14:39 -0700 E-mail in Upper West Side of Manhattan is okay, local and national TV too. Radio is out due to loss of transmitters on the collapsed WTC towers. Our wire and wireless phones are on and off. Subways are partly out. We cannot see the WTC area from the roof of our building, so TV and Internet are all we got. I was about to leave for a meeting in the WTC area when the news broke. Trying to locate a daughter who has a dot.com job near the WTC. Many friends nearby too. A word on the structure of the WTC towers: The WTC towers had a distinctive structural system which utilized the exterior wall framing for lateral bracing -- a so-called lattice framework. This allowed minimization of internal lateral bracing and opened up the floor plans. You can see the effect of that when the buildings collapsed, with the lattice framework crumbling and the interior imploding. The lattice works so long as it remains intact as a system: if a part of it goes, then the whole system goes. The planes punched holes in the lattice, one tower punched on two sides, maybe the other too. Portions of the lattice of the second tower briefly remained standing after the collapse, then fell. The system was considered daring at the time of construction, for it distributed loads more efficiently than legacy column-and-beam- supported systems. Probably the legacy systems would not have totally collapsed due to damage at upper floors, although floors above the damage would have come down if columns were weakened. ********** From: Rembert Oldenboom <rembert@euronet.nl> Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 14:57:51 GMT Subject: Re: FC: Terrorists attack World Trade Center and Pentagon To: declan@well.com Hi Declan, I'm in Europe and it's almost impossible to reach any news site on the internet. The Washington Post site was the only one well reachable. Even local sites are unreachable now. Guess this is something you won't hear in the US: >From the Dutch television I understood the Dutch stock market had to be stopped as stocks were dropping extremely fast. Currently one Dutch tv channel is dedicated to what's going on in the US. I learned from Dutch Teletext some other plane has crashed in Pennsylvania. What the heck is going on? Dutch television could only describe what's going on as an act of war. Seeing CNN it's impossible to think otherwise. Hmm... maybe interesting, not seen on tv yet: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-crash-tradecenter-cla im.html Palestinian Group Denies World Trade Center Crash By REUTERS Filed at 9:58 a.m. ET JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A senior official from the radical Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine denied Tuesday the group had any connection to a double plane crash onto New York City's World Trade Center. An anonymous caller had told Abu Dhabi television the DFLP was behind the crash. ``I emphasize that the story released on Abu Dhabi TV by an anonymous person is totally incorrect,'' Tayseer Khaled, a senior official from the DFLP politburo in the Palestinian territories, told Reuters. ``The DFLP is against hijacking planes and against endangering the lives of civilians who are not connected with the struggle of this region,'' he said. Greetz, Rembert Oldenboom Netherlands. ********** From: "Warren E. Agin" <wea@SWIGGARTAGIN.COM> Subject: Re: What's going on? World Trade Center, Pentagon, Old Executive Office Bldg Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 10:45:12 -0400 Organization: Swiggart & Agin, LLC My wife called. News is that office towers in Boston are being evacuated and did I think she should pick up our son from school. Wanted me to come home even though my office is on the 4th floor of a six story building. Guess I won't get much work done today. Regards, - Warren Agin ********** From: Mark Milone <milone@MINDSPRING.COM> Subject: Re: What's going on? World Trade Center, Pentagon, Old Executive Office Bldg Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 10:11:15 -0400 I'm writing from midtown NYC. The South WTC building has collapsed. Phones are +not working. Buildings are issuing terrorist warnings... - Mark ********** From: "Stephen T. Middlebrook" <Stephen.Middlebrook@FMS.TREAS.GOV> Subject: Re: What's going on? World Trade Center, Pentagon, Old Executive Office Bldg Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 10:13:17 -0400 I'm not in the Main Treasury building. We have our overlooking the Tidal Basin. I can see the pentagon smoke out my office window. There was just a huge explosion someplace -- we heard it and felt it, but we can't figure out where it was. ********** From: "Stephen T. Middlebrook" <Stephen.Middlebrook@FMS.TREAS.GOV> Subject: Re: What's going on? World Trade Center, Pentagon, Old Executive Office Bldg Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 10:17:23 -0400 We're being evacuated now. wish me luck stm ********** From: John Noble <jnoble@DGSYS.COM> Subject: Re: What's going on? World Trade Center, Pentagon, Old Executive Office Bldg Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 11:10:13 -0400 At 10:13 AM -0400 9/11/01, Stephen T. Middlebrook wrote: >I'm not in the Main Treasury building. We have our overlooking the Tidal >Basin. >I can see the pentagon smoke out my office window. > >There was just a huge explosion someplace -- we heard it and felt it, but we >can't figure out where it was. > I have a view from the top floor of my building, at the highest elevation in Washington, looking down at the city from the northwest. The Secret Service has someone on the roof. You can see a lot of smoke at the Pentagon, but not even a plume of smoke from the area of the State Dept. or the Supreme Court, or anywhere else. The traffic below, on Wisconsin Avenue, is in evening rush hour mode. John Noble ********** From: Mark Milone <milone@MINDSPRING.COM> Subject: Re: What's going on? World Trade Center, Pentagon, Old Executive Office Bldg Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 11:00:07 -0400 Try NYC traffic cams: http://nyctmc.org/xbrooklyn.asp - Mark ********** From: Jonathan Wallace <jw@BWAY.NET> Subject: World Trade Center Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 10:14:55 -0400 I was exiting the subway under the building when the first impact happened....I +went upstairs, saw the two WTC buildings burning. There was a secondary +explosion, holes in buildings blocks away from the WTC, glass raining down. +People running and crying everywhere. I ran for the Brooklyn Bridge and got +home to Brooklyn on foot in time to see the building collapse on CNN. ********** Subject: RE: Terrorists attack World Trade Center and Pentagon X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.0.4417.0 Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 08:36:39 -0700 Message-ID: <0DB13B7B9CF04B43B3BB03AED2D93C07455900@mailbox.sfbg.com> From: "Nessie" <nessie@sfbg.com> To: <declan@well.com> X-UIDL: d766cb798571ac082918db2e61fc6532 > what kind of legislation we're likely to see in response Two words: Reichstag Fire ********** ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. 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The sheer scale of this operation argues against a terrorist group as it required the resources available to a nation-state.
PAYBACK IS A BITCH!!!!
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