By StephanieLee Elliott

FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

The September 11 attacks, also, often colloquially, known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, two of which were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City and the third into the Pentagon, which is the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia. The fourth plane crashed in a rural Pennsylvania field during a passenger revolt, where the Flight 93 National Memorial was established. In response to the attacks, the United States waged the global war on terror over decades, to eliminate hostile groups deemed terrorist organizations, and the governments purported to support them.