911 ~ Ten Years Later....

11th September 2011. I was watching a movie on the telly when a friend called and said that one of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center was on fire. What is the title of the movie and which channel I asked her. No, she said. It was not a movie and it was on CNN. I immediately switched channel. As the images of a passenger plane being shown slamming straight onto one of the Twin Towers, while the other spewing plume of black smokes and flames, I immediately went into goosebumps. New York was being attacked, I told her. We hung up, I woke up me mom, we both watched in horror as eventually both towers collapsed. We also realised that Pentagon was being simultaneously attacked and another attempted one had crashed, foiled by the heroic sacrifices of the passengers against the hijackers. The next day, at the office, everyone was talking about it. Colleagues, customers, suppliers. At home. The images of the dust covered survivors are still fresh in my mind till today. Eventually, it emerged that a terrorist group called al-Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Ladin, was responsible for planning and carrying out the attack. Thousands died, all innocent peoples just looking towards another day at work....firemen and policemen whom responded to the disaster were sacrificed. The 911 Attacks as it came to be known, would marked the beginning of an era whereby opposing enemies are no longer distinctive, as like in a war where two nations of opposing nationalities fought on the battlefield. Terrorists are terrifying opponents. They care not for the innocents, they are faceless and deeply rooted in extreme ideologies which can only be described as insane. Terrorist attacks are not new. These include public bombings what the IRA did. But the 911 attacks would be the most infamous and audacious as it is considered an unprecedented direct attack onto America. The attack also emboldened some of the other terrorist cells, most infamous include the two Bali bombings, claiming two hundred lives of revellers and locals. The mastermind bin Laden, was eventually located and killed by US Navy SEALs and CIA covert operation on 2nd May 2011, in Pakistan.