On September 11, 2001, an Islamic terrorist organization named Al-Qaeda committed a devastating and frightening act of terrorism against the United States. Four different attacks took place, carried out by four hijacked airliners. Two of the attacks took place in New York (north and south towers of the World Trade Center), one at the Pentagon in the Arlington (Virginia) area and the other in a field in Shanksville (Pennsylvania), which would have been intended for the Capitol or the White House. These attacks were carried out against a group called Al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden, who was later killed after being captured by the United States. Osama bin Laden's motivation for these attacks is seen in his declaration of holy war against the United States. and a 1998 fatwa signed by bin Laden and others that called for the murder of Americans. In Bin Laden's November 2002 "Letter to America," he explicitly stated that al-Qaeda's motivations for its attacks include: support for "attacks on Muslims" in Somalia, support for "atrocities » against Muslims in Chechnya, support for Indian “oppression” against Muslims in Kashmir, the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, American support for Israel, sanctions against Iraq. After the attacks, bin Laden and al-Zawahiri released additional video and audio tapes, some of which repeated the reasons for their attacks. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the man who invented the attacks and first presented them to Osama bin Laden in 1996. In late 1998, Bin Laden gave Mohammed his consent to move forward and begin organizing their plot . A series of meetings took place in early 1999, involving Mohammed, bin Laden and his deputy Mohammed ...... middle of paper ...... and were quickly able to identify all the attackers. Very soon after the attack, the FBI released the names and descriptions of the hijackers and, on the 27th, released the actual photos of all the men. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested on March 1, 2003, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, by Pakistani officials working with the CIA, then transferred to Guantanamo Bay and interrogated. He is still detained there today, interrogated and imprisoned. The FBI never formally charged bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks (even though they knew he was behind it), but was instead placed on the FBI's most wanted list for the attack bombing the American embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. . After nearly 10 years and the largest investigation in U.S. history, bin Laden was killed by U.S. special forces at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May. 2, 2011.