September 11 Changes Everything: Al-Qaeda Attacks New York and Washington, Killing 2,996 People, and the United States Prepares for War in Afghanistan

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review | Published 3 October 2001 | Reporting Period: 3 July – 2 October 2001

Quarterly Briefing

• On September 11, nineteen Al-Qaeda operatives hijack four commercial aircraft; two are flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York, one into the Pentagon, and one crashes into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers storm the cockpit; the World Trade Center’s north and south towers collapse; 2,996 people are killed, including all passengers and crew on the four aircraft; it is the deadliest attack on American soil in history and the most lethal terrorist act ever committed; the world watches the towers fall in real time on television.
• President Bush addresses Congress on September 20 declaring a war on terror; he issues an ultimatum to the Taliban government of Afghanistan to surrender Osama Bin Laden and dismantle Al-Qaeda training camps or face military action; the Taliban rejects the ultimatum; the United States and its allies are assembling a military coalition and positioning forces in the region; as this edition is published, the Afghanistan campaign is imminent; the specific timing of its commencement has not been announced.
• NATO invokes Article 5 of its founding treaty for the first time in the alliance’s 52-year history, declaring that the September 11 attacks constitute an attack on all member states; the declaration of collective defence commits the alliance’s European members to support the US military response; the unprecedented use of Article 5 reflects the breadth of international solidarity with the United States in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.
• The global aviation industry faces an existential crisis; US airspace is closed for three days following the attacks; hundreds of aircraft are diverted to Canadian airports, including dozens to Gander, Newfoundland, whose small community hosts thousands of stranded passengers; US airlines lose billions of dollars and Congress approves a $15 billion bailout; international carriers see bookings collapse; the fundamental economic model of the airline industry — built on consistent load factors that the attacks have shattered — is under unprecedented strain.
• The Caribbean’s entire tourism-dependent economy faces an acute shock; American travellers, who constitute the majority of Caribbean visitors, are not flying; cruise ships cancel itineraries; hotel bookings for the autumn season are suspended or reversed; the Caribbean Tourism Organisation issues emergency assessments; Jamaica, whose tourism sector is its largest foreign exchange earner, faces a severe revenue shortfall at a moment when the sector had been recovering from earlier headwinds; the full economic consequences are still being assessed as this edition is published.
• The Macedonian conflict between the government and ethnic Albanian insurgents, which had threatened NATO’s broader Balkans stabilisation effort through the summer, is resolved on August 13 when a peace agreement is signed at Ohrid; NATO peacekeepers collect weapons from the insurgent group; the agreement is the result of intensive EU and NATO mediation and represents a rare diplomatic success in a summer otherwise defined by crisis; the agreement’s durability will depend on implementation of its political commitments.

Prologue: The Day the World Changed

There is no framework adequate to the events of September 11, 2001. The collapse of the World Trade Center’s twin towers — buildings that had defined New York’s skyline for three decades — was witnessed live on television by hundreds of millions of people worldwide and produced a collective psychological shock that is, as this edition is published, barely three weeks old and still absorbing. The political and strategic consequences are being determined in real time, in the Oval Office, in NATO headquarters, in Islamabad and in Kandahar. What is already clear is that the attacks have produced a fundamental reorientation of American foreign and security policy, the effects of which will be felt for a generation, and that the Caribbean — economically dependent on American tourism and deeply connected to the United States through its diaspora — will absorb those effects with particular intensity.

What Happened on September 11

The nineteen hijackers, fifteen of them Saudi nationals, had been in the United States for up to two years, living in Florida, Arizona and New Jersey, taking flight training at commercial schools and preparing for a coordinated operation planned and directed from Afghanistan by Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network. At 8:46 a.m. on September 11, American Airlines Flight 11, hijacked after departing Boston, struck the north tower of the World Trade Center. At 9:03, United Airlines Flight 175 struck the south tower. At 9:37, American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. At 9:59, the south tower collapsed, followed at 10:28 by the north tower. At 10:03, United Airlines Flight 93, whose passengers had learned via mobile phones of the other attacks and stormed the cockpit, crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania; its target was believed to have been the Capitol or the White House.

The immediate Caribbean impact was economic, and it was devastating. In the hours after the attacks, airlines stopped flying to Caribbean destinations. In the days and weeks that followed, the autumn Caribbean tourism season — already the quieter shoulder season — effectively ceased. Hotels, restaurants, tour operators and the entire supply chain that depended on visitor spending faced an abrupt revenue collapse. Caribbean governments that had been managing fiscal constraints found their principal foreign exchange earner switched off without warning. The scale of the resulting economic damage was, as this edition is published, still being computed.

What Comes Next

President Bush’s September 20 ultimatum to the Taliban has been rejected; the military campaign in Afghanistan is imminent and may have begun by the time readers of this edition receive it. The war’s scope, duration and consequences are unknown; what is known is that Afghanistan’s mountainous terrain and the history of every foreign military adventure there — British, Soviet and now potentially American — suggests that the campaign will not be simple. For the Caribbean, the question is whether the world’s extraordinary solidarity with the United States in this moment will translate into economic and security arrangements that support regional recovery, or whether the US will turn inward in a manner that reduces its engagement with its nearest neighbours. CARICOM leaders are expressing solidarity with the American people while working urgently on economic impact assessments; the coming months will test the resilience of regional economies in ways unprecedented in the post-independence period.

Jamaica Homes Global Conflict & Caribbean Impact Review is published quarterly, examining how wars, geopolitical tensions and major international crises have shaped Jamaica, the Caribbean and their economies.

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