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  • A History of Air Warfare - Operation Enduring Freedom - 2001

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    Licio Jesus JESUS
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    A History of Air Warfare_Operation Enduring Freedom_2001

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    2 views23 pages

    A History of Air Warfare - Operation Enduring Freedom - 2001

    Uploaded by

    Licio Jesus JESUS

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 23
    Benjamin S. Lambeth (On THe MoRWING oF SerTeMneR 11, 2001, a clear day that will be forever remembered in American history, four jetiiners—two Bocing 757s and «wo Bocing 767s, all on scheduled transcontinencal lights from the East Coast and each fully laden with fucl—were commandeered by Islamist terrorists almost simultaneously after their near-concurrent departures from Boston, Newark, and Washington, D.C. Upon being hijacked, the four aircraft were promptly cummed into what would become de facto weapons of mass destruction against the United States and its citizens. "The first rw aircraft were flown within eighteen minutes of each other into the ‘win towers of che World Trade Center in New York City, ultimately reducing those familiar landmarks of the Manhattan skyline to 450,000 tons of rubble. The third aircraft was flown forry minutes later into the souhwestern side of the Pentagon in Arlingcon, Virginia. The fourth aircraft, its intended carger still unknown but thought to have been the White House or the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C, fortunately had its mission thwarted by some brave passengers who turned on their captors once they learned, from frantic cell phone conversations with friends and relatives on che ground, whac the other thee airliners had just done, Afra filed struggle between the teroriss and their sisters, chat aircraft was brought to earth in a ball of fire in an empey feld in western Pennsylvania, ‘The attacks caught che United States completely off guard. They also instantly defined the face of ealy ewenty-frs-century conflict. What for neatly a decade had ‘come to be loosely called the "post-Cold War era,” for lack of a better phrase to describe the stil-unshaped period that followed the collapse of Soviet communism, ‘was transformed in the short span of one morning into the era of fanatical Islamist ‘extremism, The attack, planned and executed by a determined band of murderous Islamist zealots, made for the boldest hostile act to have been commited on US. soil since Pearl Harbor. They also represented the single most destructive instance of 255. 256 A Histony of Aix Wansans terroris aggression to have taken place anywhere in the world. The loss of life caused by the attacks exceeded that from Japan's attack on Peatl Harbor in 1941. Inthe final tally, nearly cree thousand innocent civilians died as a result of the atacks. Immediately after the attacks, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered all airborne domestic fights to land at the nearest suitable airport. It also banned any further nonmilitary takeoffs nationwide and, forthe ist time ever, halted all civil air traffic in the United States. Asa result, some tisty-three thousand airborne passengers were taken in by Canada as U.S. airspace was closed and incoming international flights were rerouted. At the same time, at the direction of President George W. Bush, a continuicy-of government plan that was rooted in che early days of the Cold War was set into motion. As a part ofthat plan, the president was kept aiborne and moving aboard Air Force One until the apparent terrorist threat had subsided. Only 3¢7:00 pam. did the president finally return to Washingcon to address che nation. In that address, he affirmed that in responding to the attacks, the United States would “make no dist harbor them.” Earlier that day, even as the attacks were still under way, the aler status of U.S. forces around the world was raised to Defense Condition 3, the highest level since the Yor Kippur War of 1973. Air National Guard F16 fighters were launched from [Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, to provide a continuous combat air patrol over the nation’s capital. At the same time, Air Guard E-16s in Richmond, Virginia, were put on highest alert. E-3 airborne warning and control aircraft were also placed on airborne orbits to monitor the airspace over New York City and Washington as tight restrictions were imposed on access to U.S. military installasions worldwide.’ Many of those installarions went to Force Protection Condition Delta, their most secure ‘don between the tertorists who committed these acts and those who lockdown status. Although no one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, it did not take long for the U.S. government to find strong evidence that Osama bin Laden and his Islamist al Qaeda tertorist network had been behind them. The attacks represented something fundamentally new with respect co international terrorism,

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