Further Updates On Terrorist Attack

Further news of the events going on around the world following the attacks earlier today on New York and Washington. To follow things even more closely, you are encouraged to join realtime CNN coverage in channel #cnn_newsfeed on irc.idlenet.org. (Doubtless there are other similar IRC and IM feeds going on -- please post them in comments.) In addition to the news below, note that CNN has reported that multiple suspects were arrested with a van loaded with explosives in the vicinity of New York's George Washington Bridge. Update: 09/12 04:29 AM GMT by T : Many readers have reported that the van in question was found not to contain explosives, though its occupants were held for questioning. And Giacomo DiGrigoli, international product manager at PayPal.com, wrote with word of a donation fund on the PayPal website where folks can make donations to the American Red Cross.

Contradicting earlier reports, reader Adam Brookman writes: "I can guarantee that no car bomb went off in front of the State Dept. in DC. My father is part of the critical personel at State dept. When I read that I called him. He said he heard the same thing and he also heard that the building was hit by a plane, but neither were true."

Worth reading is this analysis of the motives and some possible suspects in today's violence, at Jane's International Security News. They've picked three plausible attackers. Motive aside, Jack Bryar has a convincing take on who is really most hurt by the attacks today.

babyruth writes: "amazon.com has a Red Cross Relief fund set up on their homepage, where you can contribute online. Only several hundred have contributed so far, let the power of /. help!" Iridium provides a link straight to the donations page, noting that "All standard fees are waived -- all proceeds go directly to the Red Cross." Of course, the Red Cross is -still- in desperate need of blood. If you can donate, please call 1-800-HELP-NOW to find the donation center nearest to you.

iggyflashbulb writes: "CNN reports some oddball group not associated with bin Laden is attacking Kabul at night. Are they taking advantage of the NY situation or did they create it?"

An anonymous reader writes: "Following the sad (and outrageous) mess of these terrorist attacks, results are already starting to impact the country. When a RSM failed on one of our 5500 Ciscos, we recieved the following notice

'Due to a national emergency completion of your case, delivery of your parts or engineer will be delayed until further notice. Several areas of the country have restricted transportation and currently no air traffic is available. Cisco will notify you as soon a we are able to dispatch your order.'

There doesn't seem to any information on Cisco's site."

CERT is in action as well: SilentTone writes: "Ween Hall at Carnegie-Mellon University was evacuated today so the the Computer Emergency Response Team could go into action."

Many readers have been assembling mirrors for the overloaded news sites of the world. Jon Anhold writes: "I've compiled more photos and what not, mirrored many of the sites around to help the load. They're available here: http://ziggy.dreamland.net/wtc/"

Owen Bossola writes: "This is a simple webpage I put up with shots I took all day of the World Trade Center. I go to school across the river at Stevens Institute of Technology and I watched the whole thing from campus. It is absolutely nuts, I'm looking out my window and for the first time, downtown NYC is dark, and there aren't two large buildings gleaming back at me."

rhyder writes: "I was last in the World Trade Center and the attached World Financial Center on Saturday evening. Many people I know work in those buildings, even more live and work in the shadow of those 2 towers.

From the Port Authority of NY and NJ:

1. The Port Authority
   
2. Trade Center Concourse Level Map
   
3. Trade Center Plaza Level Map
   
4. Trade Center Complex Overview
   
5. Area Map showing southern tip of Manhattan and the Trade Center location."

An Anonymous Coward seeks more information about an interview that Washington area readers may be able to provide: He writes: "Fox News channel 5 (local around 6:30ish E.S.T) this evening had an interview with a witness about what he saw at the Pentagon the moment of impact. His interview was the basic 'I was in my car looked to my side..blah blah' but then he said something totally unexpected. He observed a second airplane immediately swing behind the first in a follow like manner and swoop down on the Pentagon only to pull up at the last second, out of the smoke cloud, and fly away. His description of the plane was pretty detailed, saying it was propeller-driven ... He stated everyone around him who were also outside their cars saw the SECOND Airplane following the first and it was also going in."

Anyone else able to confirm this rumor?

Jon Bishop asks: "Why Today? Why did this attack happen on September 11, 2001. Here is a guess. I played with the date commonly used for programming. YYYYMMDD returns 20010911. 911...in 2001. Is this play on numbers intentional or coincidence?" It may be significant that the anniversary of a Congressional resolution "favoring a Jewish homeland in Palestine" falls on this date. Then again, if you go back a century or two, you may find a lot of anniversaries that seem just as significant.

Carl Merritt writes: "Since many sites seem to be creaking under the load today I've dumped every relevant picture and video I can find onto my server, please feel free to suck up some of my unused bandwidth with downloads or links: http://www.binaryvista.com/WTC/ I'll probably leave it up for a couple weeks, or until CNN asks me to remove their pictures ;-)."

An Anonymous Coward writes "I just want to remind everyone that there is still active air cover over at least Chicago. A tanker is orbiting O'Hare and at least what appear to be two F-15s are making the rounds. If you would like more information including frequencies I suggest subscribing to the CARMA mailing list at QTH.net for up to date monitoring information."

Disheartening news from Egypt: soulflakes points to this story of some Egyptians celebrating the attacks today. Here's a BBC piece which indicates the feeling is shared in some other African countries. This doesn't mean that all or most people in any country feel the same way.

yoda389 writes: "I'm getting reports from friends that gas prices are jumping to as much as $5.00 a gallon. There are huge lines at all gas stations here in my hometown someplace in Wisconsin." And ikohl1 writes: "A friend just informed me of how gas prices were raised to $3.50 in a town near where i live. I didn't believe him at first but I found this article on Yahoo."

Gas prices may fluctuate in the short term, but in the long haul, effects on exports of goods physical and abstract may be affected just as drastically: elliotj writes: "MSNBC has a Steven Levy opinion piece on the possible implications of today's attack on America and governmental policy on encryption export restrictions. Personally, I think we need to determine exactly what happened before blaming physical or electronic security measures for a role in the tragedy. I heard the planes were hi-jacked with knives ... that doesn't sound very high-tech or a sign of significant security failings to me. It is the act itself that is so shocking and sickening."

CNN newsfeed closed down.

[jallen02]

The CNN news feed will be open again at 8AM ET. It just shut off a few minutes ago.

Jeremy

More on air cover in DC

[PenguinRadio]

1) DC Special Operations Police Channel is streamed at http://www.penguinradio.com/

2) This is a posting from the DC Police Scanner mailing list (qth.net). Very interesting on air cover over DC.
---
FW:------
--
All,

These are my own observations based only on my hand notes taken at the time.

I started listening to the events around 1030 EDT. The Trade Towers and the
Pentagon had already been attacked. By that time there was not a peep of
civil air traffic in the area. One of the first things I heard was Andrews
tower announcing on their VHF & UHF freqs that their airspace was closed and
that all intruders would be shot down. That certainly put an exclamation
point on what I was to hear for the rest of the day.

Throughout the day the Regan National controller (125.65) was the overall
controlling authority for the DC area. He authorized all departures and
entries into the Class B airspace. That role still remains as of 2200 EDT.

As of 2100 EDT Andrews is starting to return to normal with Airevacs and some
helos and VIP jets starting to fly in.

Fighters:

By 1030 there were two flights of DC ANG F-16s (Wild & Caps) up in Combat
Air Patrol (CAP). At that time there were news reports of another, missing
airliner, so I assume the F-16s were up protecting the DC area from that
possibility. Soon these F-16s were joined by three more F-16s from Langley,
North Dakota ANG aircraft normally deployed to Langley in an air defense
mode. The DC ANG flight leader assumed the role as CAP commander trying to
keep all the aircraft straight. DC ANG F-16s assumed control the airspace
below 23,000 ft and the Langley F-16s and alter, F-15s took the airspace
above that.

After about an hour, two Langley F-15s (First) joined the CAP and took up
position high above the area. They were also joined by some F-18s up from
Oceana. This caused some problems as far as refueling was concerned. The
KC-10s, who had the drogue capability, were ready to RTB and were out of
fuel. One of the KC-10s (Team 23) took it upon himself to set up to refuel
his aircraft from the available KC-135 (Tazz) so that he would be in a
position to refuel both the boom aircraft (F-16s & F-15s) and the drogue guys
(F-18s).

In the early afternoon, a flight of two VA ANG F-16s (Fury) came up to the DC
area to join the CAP group. The CAP commander later sent them back to the
Richmond area because there were too many aircraft in the DC area. After
about 30 minutes the VA ANG guys decided to end their CAP around Richmond and
RTB'ed to Harry Byrd International.

Tankers:

By 1030 there were two McGuire KC-10s (Team 23 & 24) up in the area. I'm not
sure if they were already in the general area when the events unfolded or
they were scrambled from McGuire. They started refueling the DC & Langley
F-16s so they could stay in the area. For awhile, in the morning, Team 23
also assumed the role of an AWACS giving target and vectoring information to
the CAP fighters. Team 23 eventually recovered at Andrews and refueled and
went back up in the late PM (1740). What a crew. They deserve a medal.
They've been up there since at least 1030 this morning.

Around the same time as the McGuire tankers were noted, two KC-135s from the
Maine ANG (Maine 85 & 86) were also in the area working with the McGuire
tankers. I believe that these guys had been up off the East Coast and were
diverted to the area to support operations.

Later in the morning and in the early afternoon two OH ANG KC-135s (Tazz &
Flop) and two PA ANG KC-135s (Steel) also joined the support crowd.

AWACS:

About an hour after I started listening, an AWACS (Bandsaw Kilo) was noted
off the MD/VA coast and started taking control of the airspace. However, the
DC ANG CAP commander continued to control the immediate airspace around
downtown DC. Later in the afternoon he was joined by another AWACS
(Chalice). I'm assuming that these aircraft were deployed from Langley or
possibly Seymour-Johnson. Bandsaw and Chalice were both in the area until
quite late in the evening.

Helos:

They were so many medevac helos trying to get into the Pentagon area to
extricate the wounded that I couldn't keep track of all of them.
Interspersed among the medevacs were several 1st Helo Sqdn (Mussels) getting
into the Pentagon area to take out some of the military VIPs (JCS).

There were also a couple of US Navy helos (HU-720) and another ) that came up
to Andrews from Norfolk. I'm assuming that these were carrying VIPs from
CincLant. News reports said that the area of the Pentagon that was struck by
the plane housed mostly USN & Marine offices.

Late in the PM there were several Nighthawk helos operating back & forth
between MCAF Quantico and Andrews. I'm assuming that they were shuttling
military VIPs.

NCS:

Huntress assumed NCS role sometime in the late morning and set up on 255.8,
228.9 & 234.6. Huntress assumed responsibility for designating targets and
releasing fighters to prosecute these targets.

The DC ANG F-16s and Langley F-15s as well as the AWACS and tankers have
been up continuously, -all day. They are still up and it's 2200 EDT. They
must be bushed.

These crews certainly have shown a very high level of professionalism and
devotion to duty. I for one am glad they are up there looking over us. Those
of you who support our military you can be VERY PROUD of their actions on
this day.

Air cover

[SbooX]

Air cover is also being flown over Boston, MA. Earlier today I witnessed three flybys by what appeared to be an F-15 at very low levels over my hometown of Winthrop. An hour ago I saw two aircraft, one following the other fly over Winthrop and head out to sea. If I had to guess, it was a fighter and a tanker but since I couldn't actually see it, dont hold me to it.

2nd plane

[gusman]

I can confirm that a second plane was reported on the local DC television stations, and it was described as detailed above.

Re:CNN newsfeed closed down.

[Turnesol]

CNN LIVE audio feed

A sound feed for all those people who dont have access to CNN

Shoutcast Cluster [shoutcast.com]

Re:Fox News' reasons for Sept. 11

[sconeu]

Don't forget the Camp David Accords in 1977.

This was coming

[maniacdavid]

According to USA Today [usatoday.com], this attack was all in the making if Bin Laden is the case. The article is only about 3 months old, but it details on how Osama Bin Laden used encryption inside of pictures most likely to hide possible attacks. They say this is Bin Laden's latest encryption scheme to convey terrorist information. So when the CIA says did not know this was going to happen, really maybe they are covering up the fact that they sort of knew this but didn't think it would amount to anything.

The Afghanistan Explosions

[matthewg]

A group known as the Northern Alliance, an Afghan group opposed to the Taliban and associated with Shah Massooda, has taken credit for the explosions in Afghanistan.

from http://www.skyscraper.org/tallest/t_wtc.htm

[klrnsdme]

From skyscraper.org [skyscraper.org]

World Trade Center History and Stats

The World Trade Center
Height: 1,368 and 1,362 feet (417 and 415 meters)
Owners: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Architect: Minoru Yamasaki, Emery Roth and Sons consulting

Engineer: John Skilling and Leslie Robertson of Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson
Ground Breaking: August 5, 1966
Opened: 1970-73; April 4, 1973 ribbon cutting
The World Trade Center is more than its signature twin towers: it is a complex of seven buildings on 16-acres, constructed and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ). The towers, One and Two World Trade Center, rise at the heart of the complex, each climbing more than 100 feet higher than the silver mast of the Empire State Building.

Construction of a world trade facility had been under consideration since the end of WWII. In the late 1950s the Port Authority took interest in the project and in 1962 fixed its site on the west side of Lower Manhattan on a superblock bounded by Vesey, Liberty, Church and West Streets. Architect Minoru Yamasaki was selected to design the project; architects Emery Roth & Sons handled production work, and, at the request of Yamasaki, the firm of Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson served as engineers.

The Port Authority envisioned a project with a total of 10 million square feet of office space. To achieve this, Yamasaki considered more than a hundred different building configurations before settling on the concept of twin towers and three lower-rise structures. Designed to be very tall to maximize the area of the plaza, the towers were initially to rise to only 80-90 stories. Only later was it decided to construct them as the world's tallest buildings, following a suggestion said to have originated with the Port Authority's public relations staff.

Yamasaki and engineers John Skilling and Les Robertson worked closely, and the relationship between the towers' design and structure is clear. Faced with the difficulties of building to unprecedented heights, the engineers employed an innovative structural model: a rigid "hollow tube" of closely spaced steel columns with floor trusses extending across to a central core. The columns, finished with a silver-colored aluminum alloy, were 18 3/4" wide and set only 22" apart, making the towers appear from afar to have no windows at all.

Also unique to the engineering design were its core and elevator system. The twin towers were the first supertall buildings designed without any masonry. Worried that the intense air pressure created by the buildings' high speed elevators might buckle conventional shafts, engineers designed a solution using a drywall system fixed to the reinforced steel core. For the elevators, to serve 110 stories with a traditional configuration would have required half the area of the lower stories be used for shaftways. Otis Elevators developed an express and local system, whereby passengers would change at "sky lobbies" on the 44th and 78th floors, halving the number of shaftways.

Construction began in 1966 and cost an estimated $1.5 billion. One World Trade Center was ready for its first tenants in late 1970, though the upper stories were not completed until 1972; Two World Trade Center was finished in 1973. Excavation to bedrock 70 feet below produced the material for the Battery Park City landfill project in the Hudson River. When complete, the Center met with mixed reviews, but at 1,368 and 1,362 feet and 110 stories each, the twin towers were the world's tallest, and largest, buildings until the Sears Tower surpassed them both in 1974.

Re:oh boy.... read this:

[Linux Freak]

Interesting, but fortunately Nostradamus made a number of predictions which turned out to be incorrect [psychics.co.uk].

The Northern Alliance

[matthewg]

Here [cnn.com] is some more information about the Northern Alliance and Shah Massoud.

There are survivors!!!!!!!!!!!!

[SbooX]

Peter Jennings just reported on ABC news television that some survivors have indeed been pulled from the rubble! This supposedly comes from the Mayor. Lets keep pulling them out!

Almost concrete proof of Bin Ladin Involvement...

[chronos2266]

Over at yahoo news there is a story that states that the terrorists on the flight rosters were names of members of Bin Ladin's terrorist group...check it out for yourself:
http://us.news2.yimg.com/f/42/31/7m/dailynews.yaho o.com/h/nm/20010911/wl/crash_binladen_dc_4.html [yimg.com]

Gasoline Prices (OffTopic?)

[bladel]

I'm certain that I am not the only one receiving frantic phone calls from friends and relatives around the country about $5-8/gallon gasoline prices. Usually these alerts are retold third- or fourth-hand accounts.

I drove around town just for kicks, and all the stations had the same prices that were posted Tuesday morning.

This reminds me of a real-world version of an email hoax, only this one has the potential to be self-fufilling: At each station there were lines of cars waiting to fill up on $1.75 gas.

Like alot of stories today, this one is getting out of control. Do your part: do not spread these rumors, and challenge the information of those who do.

Why the WTC towers collapsed.

[farrellj]

What freaked me out was the collapse of the twin towers...I know a bit about structural engineering, and knew that these buildings were designed to withstand a passenger jet hitting them. But what really got to me is how they collapsed, like a controlled explosion where the fold the building in on itself.

One Declan McCullagh's mailing list, someone posted a much better analysis of the collapse than what has been seen in the media...most of the media engineers were mostly wrong. Take a gander at this url: http://www.pfarrell.com/rants/archtower.html [pfarrell.com].

This article talks about how the outside latticework of the WTC was actually a load-bearing member, and there were no internal support columns...and this explains why it collapsed the way that it did.

We can only theorize that the extreme heat of the jet fuel weaking the steel coupled with the fact that these jets were going fast enough to destroy the lattice work on almost all four sides of the structure where they hit caused the eventual collapse of the structures.We can only that what dieties you pray to that they fell in the manner the did...if they had fallen sidewas, in different directions...the death toll would have gone up by possibly an order of magnitutde!

ttyl, Farrell J. McGovern (No relation)

Twin Towers are designed for 2 hour fire

[anlprb]

The Towers did exactly what they were supposed to do. They were engineered to fold in on themselves so that they do not take our multiple blocks in the City. The amount of fuel that was expended burned a typical 4 hour fire in about 10 min. That fatigued the girders enough that the floors that were affected started falling in on themselves. Each floor is designed to hold two floors worth of debris before they buckle. The floors that eventually gave way were holding much more than that. The buildings did exactly what was needed. They did not take out more than was minimal in a horrible situation. BTW, I am 10 min outside of the city, and the New Jersey Turnpike was shutdown, including all bridges in the area. All ways in and out were shutdown for a while. They are still not letting anyone into the City. It is 12:30AM now.

Re:Why the WTC towers collapsed.

[EvilStein]

No internal support?

Interesting, because the architect that designed the building was on ABC news earlier stating that the buildings actually had a solid steel core running in the center of the building.

Jet fuel (Jet-A) burns at a very high temperature, and it was eventually enough to melt the steel core of the building, which is most likely what caused the collapse.

Again, this is just what I heard on ABC news today....

(I know a few structural engineers and they confirm this as well)

Kudos to slashdot and all of us, readers.

[tcc]

This might be off-topic but In my book it's not, since its about the information covered.

Slashdot has been my primary source of information, just about all the biggest news feed were jammed, didn't have any tv to watch, and the progress at which people posted here and all the links given, plus the overall stability of the site, I mean, I'm impressed.... I was sure at some point when the server started being overloaded that it would be down for hours, instead, it was just for minutes or simple slowdown but nothing critical like the big feeds which were totaly busted.

Unfortunately. this is not the kind of event you'd want to happen to test the overall stability of a server and the quality of it's content, but at least it hanged in there, where others that have way more financial power and supposely professionnal staff to do the job, failed.

Thanks to all the Slashdot team, and us, readers/contributors.

Almost concrete ....huh?

[feed_me_cereal]

All I saw was "bin laden is linked...bin ladin is linked...." and never a "linked by" or "linked because of". Is speculation passed through yahoo now considered almost concrete proof? Scary...

This is not Nostradamus.

[KFury]

This is an urban legend. Even though it was just 'born' today, it's totally fabricated.

Here's the debunking [fury.com].

Re:The Afghanistan Explosions

[PenguinRadio]

The leader of the Northern Alliance is belived to have been killed over the weekend in an ambush. He was charismatic and able hold various factions together. Needless to say, his troops (which control 5% of Afghanistan) are pretty upset.

Friday's "Worldwide Caution" from Dept. of State

[Memophage]

I find it interesting that just this past Friday, (September 7th) the U.S. Department of State issued the following "Worldwide Caution" travel bulletin for the benefit of US travelers:

"Over the last several months, the U.S. Government has learned that U.S. citizens and interests abroad may be at increased risk of a terrorist action from extremist groups. In addition, we have received unconfirmed information that terrorist actions may be taken against U.S. military facilities and/or establishments frequented by U.S. military personnel in Korea and Japan. We are also concerned about information we received in May 2001 that American citizens may be the target of a terrorist threat from extremist groups with links to Usama Bin Ladin's Al-Qaida organization. In the past, such individuals have not distinguished between official and civilian targets. As always, we take this information seriously. U.S. Government facilities worldwide remain at a heightened state of alert."

[From: http://travel.state.gov/wwc1.html [state.gov] ]

Arafat statement on CNN

[Anonymous Coward]

I just saw the statement of Arafat on CNN. He appeared emotional and shocked, his lips trembled as he spoke. He condemned the attack, and seemed sincere although he did not look directly at the camera.

Washington DC Interview

[Anonymous Coward]

I can confirm that there was a man who said a second plane was at the Pentagon. Apparently the plane (which the witness described as grey with 2 big propellers (i.e. not a civilian plane)) looked as though it was diving straight for the Pentagon, but lifted up out of the dust and flew away. I thought it was odd myself that no one else was reporting this...

One more thing you can do.

[Jamuraa]

If any of you don't have a PayPal account yet, you can sign up and get $5 free. My first act: give give it to the red cross fund. Go to PayPal [paypal.com] now and sign up!

Re:The van

[Faies]

The van contained no explosives, but the three people involved have been detained for questioning.

If you are wondering what the original reason for detaininment was, ABC reported that the three men in custody were seen celebrating upon viewing the initial explosions. Several bystanders then gave information to the police.

Mirror

[ekrout]

Please mod this up, as I feel my collection and connection is one of the best out there [bucknell.edu]:

http://www.students.bucknell.edu/ekrout/images/911 _In_America/images/gallery/index.html [bucknell.edu]

Mirror For Video / Image Archive

[beefdart]

We here at school have begun collecting images and video to help out with the bandwidth problem the news sites are having... Here [rit.edu] Also feel free to send anything in...

Another analysis

[FunkyChild]

The civil engineering faculty at Sydney University has another (quite informative) analysis here:

http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm [usyd.edu.au]

IRC coverage

[Wizard of OS]

In #coverage on irc.slashnet.org our operators are posting the latest news on the events. The channel is +m, so please message opers with your (validated) news sources.

The Simple Razor Theory

[orbbro]

There have been a few posts here about lax security & speculating about how the hijackings were undertaken. Here's my theory: it was a lot simpler than a lot of security & terrorism experts are saying, and even the terrorists are surprised by the magnitude of the devastation they've wrought. Let me explain.

When I first heard about this at 7am one thing bugged me. How did 4 planes, from 3 airports, belonging to 2 airlines, get hijacked within minutes of each other? I was making a mistaken assumption, however -- the same one that our airport security systems have been making that allowed this tragedy to occur. I assumed you'd need a gun to effectively or meaningfully hijack a plane

I heard later Tues. that the planes, as far as is yet known, were hijacked by men with KNIVES. Some reports referred to them as "box knives," which implies to me improvised &/or small tools, rather than specialized and combat-oriented weapons.

Do you know how many times I've gotten on a plane with a 3-inch Spyderco knife on my person? And in my carry-on luggage? For hiking trips in Alaska or just because I carry it most days? It's easy to do. I've even taken a 3" Spyderco through the Boston airport on the way to Westchester NY. So I know first hand that you don't need special ceramic weapons to get a blade past Boston airport security.

I think that this was a relatively small-time operation, at least compared to what some "experts" are saying. You get 4 guys willing to die for the cause, some luggage, plane tickets, and knives. Train them in the basics of flying these planes (which has been said to be easy once they're airborne), teach them how to kill the pilots quickly with their toys, get them into the US, and send them on their way. It could take as little as a dozen people to plan & execute it, with, say, $20k for direct expenses. A few weeks, plus however long you want to train them with the knives & planes.

I heard a professional commercial pilot say on NPR tonight that a 180-pound man could break into one of those cockpit doors easily. No battering ram necessary. So the single hijacker gets up 15 minutes before NYC, as if to go to the lavatory, then busts down the cockpit door and kills both pilots. Within 2 minutes of getting out of his seat, he's flying the plane. No one is going to fuck with him at this point because 1) they're afraid of causing the plane to crash, and 2) they're terrified in general, and 3) on some level they expect these guys to behave like all the hijackers we've ever heard of, which is to say that they'll try to negotiate the release of political prisoners or something -- not crash the plane in the next 20 minutes. This theory also explains the reports that no emergency messages were sent from the crashed planes -- the pilots were killed or incapacitated immediately and lost control from that point onward. Thus, also, the frantic calls passengers "were told" to make (according to headlines on washingtonpost.com) to inform unaware authorities of the hijacking underway.

My conclusion: the hijackers got lucky in that this was totally ruthless, audacious, innovative, and unexpected. I don't think anything like it will happen again.

A Car in Boston Airport Was Found

[KidSock]

The Boston Globe is reporting that a car was found at Boston airport (name?) with Arabic flight manuals. Apparently they got into an altercation with someone in the parking lot. That person notified authorities about the incedent after hearing of the tragedy when he landed at his destination leading them to this car. They are fairly certain that passports, the flight training manuals, and possibly other information in the car link these people to Bin Laden's "base". One of the suspects was a trained pilot and a member of the Arabic something Leage (?).

War where? Against whom?

[korpiq]

I may hurt your feelings, though I try just speak my mind up. I know I'm touchy now, so try to take the following casually. I trust on the moderators to view this as a foreigner's honest, differing viewpoint.

1. US Citizens have not had war in their own continent/country for a few, what, hundred years. It shows somewhat in the shockedness of the commentary. Of course this is awful. It does not happen only to someone else somewhere else, neither is what happens to you unique in this day and age. A few surprise attacks and -strikes from last century come to mind. Some of them out of scale, some changing our world for ever.

2. JFK: one mad US citizen. OKC: a few mad US citizen. Yet every time the foreigners get blamed before the attackers are found.

I am shocked and afraid of the future now. I live on the other side of the world from there. Most of us do. Live in fear of the US reaction and what that will do for the world. The world we all have to live in. There is no escape from this planet just yet, not even for chosen few US citizens. We must get along. Focus on anything else, and the nature will take care of us for good.

Sorry if I hurt your feelings; this is just critique that comes to mind while trying to work over the shock by absorbing as much information and commentary about the situation as possible.

condolences

[vunzzz]

an online condolence register has been opened at http://newyorkcondolence.com/ [newyorkcondolence.com] or http://nycondolence.com/ [nycondolence.com]

Re:This was coming

[SILIZIUMM]

Are you talking about the Egypt-Air tragedy ? It seems that in that case the pilot wanted to kill himself, there were no terros onboard.

Re:More Speculation

[Anonymous Coward]

It is just NOT TRUE that 'anyone who knows how to use a steering wheel could operate it'. My dad flys boeing 737 and he told me that it is _extremely_ difficult to hit such a narrow target at that speed. (you may have noticed that the planes had no flaps or gears out, which would have slowed down the airspeed, making it easier to manouver the plane into the tower) The people flying the aircrafts must have been some extremely skilled and well trained pilots! (fyi: my name is florian beer - i would have signed up but the system didn't work for me...)

Red Cross Discrimination :(

[jaredcat]

Its at times like this that it becomes particularly painful that the American Red Cross does not allow gay men to donate blood.

Large mirror at www.crystalflame.net

[Fiery]

www.crystalflame.net [crystalflame.net] is mirroring as much as I can possibly find, and linking to the large mirrors that aren't easily mirrorable.

Re:Fifth plane

[madeye the younger]

I believe that was the Korean airliner forced down in Canada. It did NOT crash. Its emergency beacon was activated, reportedly for a 'low fuel' indicator, and someone with common sense AND authority had it landed & checked out. Good show.

Transcript of Tom Clancy on CNN

[kikta]

I logged this from CNN's IRC live feed [edited slightly for readability], while I was watching it on TV. He says that the evnts of yesterday wouldn't be believable in a book (and he's right, of course). I especially love the way they switch to New York as soon as he points a finger at them...

Session Start: Tue Sep 11 17:20:07 2001
*** Now talking in #CNN_Newsfeed
*** Topic is 'Live CNN Closed Captioning'
JOINING ME HERE IN THE
WASHINGTON STUDIO, A
FAMILIAR NAME, A FAMILIAR
FACE, BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF
SO MANY NOVELS.
TOM CLANCY.
MYSTERIES AT THE HEART, TOM
CLANCY, AT THE MILITARY
COMMUNITY, THE INTELLIGENCE
COMMUNITY, PEOPLE IN OUR
NEWSROOM HAVE BEEN SAYING
WHAT IS THINK IS LIKE RIGHT
OUT OF A TOM CLANCY NOVEL.
BUT HAVE YOU -- COULD YOU
POSSIBLY IMAGINE SOMETHING
LIKE THIS TO WRITE ABOUT?
>> NO.
ONE OF THE PROBLEMS WITH
BEING A WRITER OF FICTION,
IS YOU CAN'T KEEP WUP ALL OF
THE MAD MAN IN THE WORLD, AS
MUCH AS YOU TRY.
AND I -- I FRANKLY WOULD
HAVE THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS
NOT A CREDIBLE THREAT TO THE
HAVE FOUR SEPARATE PEOPLE TO
DECIDE TO COMMIT SUICIDE IN
THE SAME WAY IN THE SAME
MORNING.
JUDY: WHY NOT?
>> BECAUSE GIVING UP YOUR
OWN LIFE IS NOT WHAT YOU DO.
EVERYONE IS ASSUMING THAT
THESE ARE ISLAMIC TERRORIST,
IF SO, THEY HAVE DEFIED
THEIR OWN RELIGION.
ISLAM DOES NOT PERMIT
SUICIDE, IT SAYS THAT YOU GO
TO HEATING OIL IF DO YOU
SOMETHING LIKE THIS.
JUDY: WE HAVE SEEN THE
SUICIDE BOMBINGS IN THE
MIDDLE EAST AND ISRAEL.
>> JUDY WE SAW PEOPLE IN
NORTHERN IRELAND CATHOLICS
ACTING LOOISH LIKE SAVIDGES
AND PROTESTANTS ACTING LIKE
SAVIDGES AND MUSLIMS ACTING
LIKE SAVIDGES.
IT'S BECAUSE THEY ARE FOOLS.
JUDY: WHAT DOES THIS SAY
NOW?
YOU'VE -- YOU'VE DONE A LOT
OF REPORTING.
NOT NOT ONLY WRITE FICTION,
YOU DO A LOT OF REPORTING
FROM INSIDE OF THE
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY.
INSIDE OF THE MILITARY
COMMUNITY.
WHAT SDL DOES THIS SAY HOW
WELL-PREPARED AS A COUNTRY?
>> EVERYONE ASK THAT KIND OF
A QUESTION WHEN THINGS GO
WRONG, AND YOU DON'T ASK THE
QUESTION WHEN THINGS DON'T
GO RIGHT AND THE REASON IS
YOU CAN'T TELL WHEN THINGS
GO RIGHT IN THE BUSINESS.
ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I
HAVE BEEN SAYING FOR YEARS,
WE NEED TO UPGRADE THE HUMAN
CAPABILITY -- THE HUMAN
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITIES IN
THE CIA.
BECAUSE YOU CAN DO A LOT OF
SATELLITES AND A LOT OF
EAVESDROPPING TECHNIQUES,
BUT YOU CAN'T -- YOU CAN'T
FIND OUT WHAT IS IN A
PERSON'S MIND EXCEPT BY
TALKING TO THAT PERSON.
AND SO THE AGENCY NEEDS TO
INCREASE ITS HUMAN -- IT'S
HUMAN INTELLIGENCE
CAPABILITY.
THE CIA HAS ABOUT 20,000
EMPLOIT ELESS OF A -- IT
SHOULD BE DOUBLED.
BUT AMERICA AS A NATION
DOESN'T LOVE OR INTELLIGENCE
COMMUNITY.
AND CERTAINLY THE NEWS MEDIA
DOESN'T LOVE OUR
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY.
JUDY: I WILL HAVE TO
INTERRUPT TOM CLANCY, I AM
TOLD AARON BROWN IN NEW YORK
HAS A DEVELOPMENT.
AARON?
AARON: WELL, JUDY, ANOTHER
IN THE LAST FEW SECOND,
ANOTHER BUILDING, WE WILL
SPECULATE CAREFULLY HERE
THAT THERE WAS BUILDING
NUMBER 7.
ONE OF THE BUILDINGS IN
SUPPORT OF THE WORLD TRADE
CENTER TOWERS HAS COLLAPSED.
THOSE OF YOU WHO HAVE BEEN
WITH US FOR A WHILE, YOU CAN
SEE, INDEED, THE SMOKE COLOR
HAS CHANGED, GOTTEN MUCH
LIGHTER.
SO WE BELIEVE THAT YET
ANOTHER BUILDING, THIS WOULD
BE THE THIRD BUILDING HAS
COLLAPSED.
LIKELY, BUILDING NUMBER
SEVEN.
ALTHOUGH, WE ALSO HEARD THAT
THERE WERE PROBLEMS AT
BUILDING NUMBER FIVE.
AND IT'S POSSIBLE THAT THAT
ONE WENT DOWN, TOO.
AGAIN, ANOTHER BUILDING IN
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
COMPLEX APPEARS TO NOW HAVE
CAVED IN.
AFTER THESE ATTACKS.
JUDY?
JUDY: AARON, WE'RE LOOKING
AT THESE PICTURES, TOM
CLANCY AND I AS WE SIT HERE
IN THE WASHINGTON STUDIO,
AND JUST AS A COME BACK TO
TOM CLANCY.
I WANT TO READ JUST A
PORTION OF THE STATEMENT
ISSUED BY SECRETARY OF STATE
POWELL, COLIN POWELL CALLING
THESE ATTACKS A TERRIBLE
TRAGEDY, TERRIBLE TRAGEDY
BEFALLEN NOT JUST MY NATION,
BUT ALL OF THE NATIONS OF
THIS REGIONAL, THE NATIONS.
WORLD.
ALL THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN
DEMOCRACY.
TOM CLANCY, YOU WERE SAYING
SURE, WE CAN ASK THESE
QUESTIONS ABOUT FAILED
SECURITY, FAILED
INTELLIGENCE, WHEN THINGS GO
WRONG.
BUT WE HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO
THE ASK THESE
QUESTIONS, DON'T WE?
>> HAVE YOU THE RIGHT TO THE
SAY WHATEVER YOU WANT.
IT'S A PRACTICAL MATTER OF
ONE OF THE THINGS THAT YOU
WANT TO DO, IF YOU OF THE
WANT TO PREVENT THIS IS TO
BUILD UP YOUR LINE OF THE
DEFENSE.
AND FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE IS
THE INTELLIGENCE CAPABILITY.
WHEN OF THE LAST TIME THAT
THE CNN OR THE NEWS MEDIA
ISF SAID IN GENERAL TO PUT
MORE MONEY OF THE
INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY INTO
THE CIA.
YOU WOULD NEVER DO THAT.
JUDY: WE WOULDN'T TAKE THE
SIDE IN THAT IN TERMS OF
WHAT DO YOU FUND.
>> THAT YOU HAVE FAILED.
WHY NOT HELP THEM SUCCEED
FOR A WHILE.
JUDY: ARE YOU SAYING THAT
THEY ARE SIGNIFICANTLY
UNDERFUNDED IN THAT AREA NOT
JUST THE CIA BUT THE FBI?
>> HUMAN INTELLIGENCE IS
DEEMPHASIZED.
THE FBI'S JOB -- IS --
>> SPYING IS WHAT WE ARE
TALKING ABOUT.
>> THAT'S WHAT THE
INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS DO, IS
THEY SPY.
ANDEI HAS 20,000 EMPLOYEES.
ABOUT 700 OF WHOM ARE
ACTUALLY SPOOKS.
AND OF THEM AS MANY AS
TWO-THIRDS GET OUT AND GET
OUTSIDE AND DO THE SPOOK
OPERATIONS AND WE NEED TO DO
BETTER THAT, MORE THAN THAT
YOU GATHER THE INFORMATION
OF THIS TYPE OF PUTTING
PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS.
SEEING THE COPS GATHERED
INFORMATION FROM THE
INFORMANTS.
THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE.
A NUMBER OF HIRING THE
PEOPLE AND LETTING THEM DO
THE WORK.
I HAVE TO TURN IT BACK OVER
TO THE AARON.