On September 11, 2026, 25 years passed since the largest terrorist attack in US history. The coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a passenger plane killed 2,977 people. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 members of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger planes flying from the US East Coast to California.

At 08:46 local time, an American Airlines plane operating flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. At first, what happened could have been mistaken for a plane crash, but 17 minutes later a second hijacked United Airlines airliner crashed into the South Tower.

The strikes were broadcast live by television channels around the world. Less than two hours later, both 110-story towers of the World Trade Center collapsed.

A third hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon building in Virginia. The fourth airliner, operating United Airlines flight 93, was heading toward Washington. Passengers and crew members tried to regain control of the plane, after which it fell in a field near the town of Shanksville in Pennsylvania.

No one aboard the four airliners survived.

The attacks killed 2,977 people, not counting the 19 hijackers. Among the dead were citizens of more than 90 states, World Trade Center employees, plane passengers, military personnel, firefighters, police officers and medics.

According to the memorial complex, 441 emergency service workers died during the attacks. Thousands of people were injured. Many participants in the rescue operation later faced oncological and respiratory diseases due to exposure to toxic dust at the site of the towers' destruction.

The investigation into the attacks became the largest case in FBI history. More than 4,000 special agents and 3,000 other employees took part in it. Investigators checked over 500,000 messages, conducted more than 167,000 interviews and studied about 150,000 pieces of physical evidence, the FBI reports.

Responsibility for organizing the attacks was placed on Al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden.

After the attacks, US authorities declared a global war on terrorism. In October 2001, American troops entered Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda bases were located and Osama bin Laden was hiding.

In the United States, the powers of special services were strengthened, the Department of Homeland Security was created and the aviation control system was reformed. Screening of passengers and baggage at airports became significantly stricter, and access by outsiders to pilot cockpits was restricted.

The consequences of the decisions taken after September 11 influenced US foreign policy, international relations, the work of special services and air travel rules around the world for decades.

Osama bin Laden was killed by American military personnel in Pakistan in May 2011 — almost ten years after the attacks.

At the site of the destroyed World Trade Center towers in New York there is a memorial complex. Two pools are built directly on the foundations of the North and South Towers. The names of the dead are engraved on bronze panels around them.

Every year on September 11, relatives of the victims gather at the memorial plaza and read out the names of the dead. The ceremony is interrupted by moments of silence at times corresponding to the plane strikes, the collapse of the towers, the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of flight 93.

In 2026, the organizers also provided for a seventh moment of silence in memory of people who died from illnesses related to the consequences of the attacks. By tradition, two powerful beams of light are directed into the sky over Manhattan, symbolizing the destroyed twin towers. The memorial complex dedicated a separate program to the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.