r/NoStupidQuestions • u/JMRooDukes808 • 6d ago

Do you think the 9/11 hijackers knew that the WTC buildings would collapse?

I really don’t know where else to ask this. There is obviously an overload of information about the event itself online, but one thing I can’t find out is if the hijackers intended to, or knew that the WTC buildings would collapse. Do you think they just planned on the impact and fires to be the extent of the damage caused? As far as I know, no steel structure buildings in history had collapsed from fire at that point, so it makes me wonder if they actually “succeeded” in their plan more than they intended.

Edit: no conspiracies please, that was not the point of my post

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u/MoreGaghPlease 6d ago

So we actually have a told answer to this both from tapes of Bin Laden found in Afghanistan early in the war and from evidence given by KSM when he was being tortured by the CIA.

Bin Laden did not expect the towers to collapse, and they were secondary targets. The main targets were the White House and the Pentagon, and he believed that both would be destroyed if the planes hit their target (obviously the Pentagon was only damaged, probably they did not appreciate how big it is). But they did not expect the towers to collapse. They had no knowledge or understanding of the engineering of the towers, they believed that it was likely to cause a fire and maybe kill the people above the impact. But they also didn’t care very much or really think about this aspect of it, it was more like something that they just mused about.

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u/FlowJock 6d ago

This.
I remember hearing that they were pleasantly surprised.

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u/Squigglepig52 6d ago

I always imagined Bin Laden thinking "Oh, fuck. that's gonna cost me later."

I didn't realize they were the secondary targets.

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u/Gekreuzte_Gewehre 6d ago

Actually, yeah, you're pretty close. Bin Laden said they didn't in their wildest dreams believethe towers would collapse and then on top of that......we have radio intercepts in Tora Bora......"I'm so sorry, my brothers, that I've brought this upon our heads!" Bin Laden himself said this as B-52s pummeled the hell out them.......

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u/GTOdriver04 6d ago

I’ve always wondered if bin Laden considered how pissed the US would be, and that they wouldn’t stop until they killed him.

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u/Whiterabbit-- 6d ago

He probably was surprised that he lived so long afterwards.

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u/neverpost4 6d ago

Thanks to the treacherous Pakistani

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u/tc_cad 6d ago

Pakistani Intelligence was definitely involved, I think they were playing a dangerous game by keeping Bin Laden from the Americans.

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u/Whiterabbit-- 5d ago

Obviously no consequences.

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u/mr_finister 5d ago

dangerous game

omg .... if it was really that "dangerous" they wouldnt be doing it ...

also america didnt really care that much to capture one single guy that had no more power ... they just wanted to make sure he wouldnt do that again ...

so no ... no dangerous game

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u/2Rhino3 6d ago

Was the government of Pakistan aware he was living there?

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u/Colforbin_43 6d ago

Well, he was living in a neighborhood that hosted Pakistan's equivalent to West Point. I’d say at least some people in the government did, and I’m being modest.

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u/dottoysm 6d ago

On the other hand, it's a great hiding spot since it's the last place you'd expect.

(This is just my speculation though. Take any real evidence over my qupping.)

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u/Colforbin_43 6d ago

Or you’re keeping him in a place you think is safe. 

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u/tc_cad 6d ago

Some people in Pakistani intelligence knew he was there. Why they kept it secret so long is interesting.

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u/Max_Rocketanski 6d ago

One theory I heard was they were keeping his location a secret as a bargaining chip in future negotiations.

Negotiations for what? I do not know.

OBL would definitely have been a great bargaining chip if the US hadn't found him first.

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u/Turbulent-Pay-735 6d ago

The US didn’t find him. A member of Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus turned him in for the reward. The entire narrative about how the US “found him” is invented to make a more satisfying story for America.

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u/tc_cad 6d ago

Agreed. There is way WAY more to this story than we will ever know.

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u/mr_finister 5d ago

Yeah spot on!

Negotiations for what? I do not know.

anything? everything? thats how negotiations work basically ... if you dont have anything to offer other party wont be prepare to give anything

... but that just shows you how much americans actually cared about capturing the Bin Laden ... if they cared they could do it way faster

like just think about it

it took america like one month to capture the whole country of Iraq ... which is even stronger country then pakistan ...

so yeah your Uncle Sam just didnt care that much about Uncle Bin Laden

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u/mr_finister 5d ago

Why they kept it secret so long is interesting.

because they had power over americans?

they have negotiation powers?

they had something that america wanted from them so they wanted to keep that advantage ....

it is not interesting at all ... it is super obvious

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u/caldy2313 6d ago

To continue the war and profit. Everyone was in on it.

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u/mr_finister 5d ago

Why they kept it secret so long is interesting.

false

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u/mr_finister 5d ago

Why they kept it secret so long is interesting.

oh wait I undestand what you mean by that

here

an actual answer that you might understnad

people didnt really care that 9/11 happen, they were also probably happy a bit about that ... since you know ... america is not that great of a country ... and well ... people dont care if something "bad" happens to people that they already hate

you are basically just the worlds bullies

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u/tc_cad 5d ago

I’m not American.

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u/Three53 6d ago

Idk if they did or if they just didn’t care ? Or were they actually a hostage also

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u/mr_finister 5d ago

NO SHIT!!!?!?!?!?!?

people on reddit are so clucles on how basically anything works

like there have probalby have been extensive diplomatic talks about that ... but did they care? no .. of course not, since they had nothing to gain from handing the guy over

like ... it hasnt been cuasing them problems so they prob. let them be

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u/TheHolyFamily 5d ago

Let's not forget the contributions of the Saudi Government and royal family, who literally helped finance his terror operations.

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u/AlmondCigar 5d ago

I know I was

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u/John_EightThirtyTwo 6d ago

He was hunted into a hole and stayed there, with his head down, for the rest of his life, until the U.S. came and killed him. I'm sure from his point of view it was all worthwhile, given how successful he was a goading the U.S. into a self-destructive spasm of pointless violence. He played us like a fiddle.

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u/munchkinatlaw 6d ago edited 6d ago

He was living in a large house with three wives, two an adult son, a bunch of kids and grand kids, satellite TV and a shitload of porn. It wasn't even a bad existence, especially compared to living in Tora Bora.

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u/Is_It_A_Throwaway 5d ago

On the other hand, he literally only quickly paced around his courtyard for 20 minutes a day and promptly shut back inside. Plus, he only lived on one floor of the three story house, which consisted on his room and the rooms of his children...

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u/llama_empanada 5d ago

Great episode on Behind the Bastards on Bin Laden’s secret hard drive. Fascinating and hilarious: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/secrets-of-osama-bin-ladens-hard-drive/id1373812661?i=1000411569136

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u/Ulyks 6d ago

As I understand it Osama Bin Laden was underwhelmed with the long term effects. His goal was to get the US to go postal, start attacking the entire middle East and then for the entire Muslim world to rise up and kick the US bases off the holy lands. Ending the US empire like some argue the war in Afghanistan ended the USSR.

Instead the US didn't touch Saudi Arabia (where the Bin Laden family lives) and just went for Afghanistan which was isolated in 2001.

Osama Bin Laden somehow escaped and might have gotten his hopes up again when the US started attacking Iraq in 2003 but again the war remained pretty much contained to these two countries.

I don't think he worried that much about getting killed. He saw himself as someone leading a holy war against an evil empire...

Of course he wanted to escape as long as possible and continue leading his holy war but getting killed would probably be acceptable and turning him into a martyr in his mind.

To be clear, I'm just placing my self in his mind for the sake of explaining his reasoning, I don't share any of his ideals.

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u/Rus1981 6d ago

He thought the US was a “paper tiger” after the lack of response from the 93 WTC bombings, the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the USS Cole.

Bases on his experience with the Clinton administration he thought we’d just shrug. He thought wrong.

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u/OldMastodon5363 6d ago

I always heard he wanted to draw the US into a quagmire in Afghanistan like they did to Russia.

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u/mrp3anut 5d ago

This doesn't hold. Drawing the US into a quagmire where there destroy you, untold numbers of your personnel, and most of your ability to finance yourself is a pretty terrible plan.

That type of plan only works if someone else did it and pinned it on Afghanistan. Then the mastermind is getting the US to spend resources fighting someone else.

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u/BailysmmmCreamy 5d ago

It does hold. The whole idea was to make the US spend an enormous amount of resources per follower killed. They achieved that goal and then some.

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u/Notmyrealname 6d ago

Yeah, that all worked out great.

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u/VonCrunchhausen 6d ago

Who controls Afghanistan right now?

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u/smackjack 6d ago

The US was trying to kill Bin Laden before 9/11.

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u/OlYeller01 5d ago

He knew. He pulled his family out of Kandahar on 9/10 and basically went into hiding right away.

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u/MichaelEmouse 6d ago

His plan was to hit the Pentagon and White House, right? He had to have known there was gonna be a reaction.

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u/dilqncho 6d ago

I mean honestly wtf did he expect would happen

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u/maksidaa 5d ago

Do you have any sources I could read about this? Not that I'm doubting, I'm just interested to read more about it.

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u/Gekreuzte_Gewehre 5d ago

I was involved heavily from July 2002-January 2003, but as I'm not a verifiable source, try these 2 books:

Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll Not a Good Day to Die, by Sean Naylor

They are both great books and I remember thinking, "Damn, these guys have some good sources."

Also, if you want some more deep Intel, try:

Relentless Strike; The Secret History of the Joints Special Operations Command, also by Sean Naylor

And if you wanna know exactly how tough and smart our Premeire Light Infantry Force is, check out "Sua Sponte"......can't remember the author's name, but he was a Navy SEAL, and he breaks the training down day by day. When he covers 1st Batt and a training cycle, it was my former Platoon Leader that's the Comapany Commander.......

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u/Willing-Departure115 6d ago

In the excellent book “The Looming Tower” it’s discussed by some of his acolytes that the commanders of AQ didn’t really seem to have a concept or a plan of what would happen the day after the attacks, when the Americans decided to respond.

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u/TigreSauvage 6d ago

"honey! Start packing. We are taking a long trip to Pakistan"

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u/Is_It_A_Throwaway 5d ago

Absolutely. There are multiple accounts of Kalid Shaqe Mohammed, "the architect of 9/11", upon hearing about the collapses, having said "I think we bit off more than we can chew. I am afraid we've awoken a sleeping tiger".

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u/LordBrixton 6d ago

I didn't 'cost him' though. He actually made a lot of money out of it.

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u/Squigglepig52 5d ago

Right, because cost is only ever in money.

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u/mr_finister 5d ago

Oh, fuck. that's gonna cost me later."

cost me later??

he already lost everything becasue of Americans

why do you think that he wanted to attack your shitty country anyways?

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u/Squigglepig52 5d ago

He didn't attack my country though.

Dude was a wealthy Saudi, he hadn't lost shit yet. He didn't lose everything until he got shot in the face.

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u/NoninflammatoryFun 6d ago

Soooo why didn’t they hit the White House first? Or capital building. Whatever it was. Cause they probably would’ve made it had people on the flight not got word of the towers.

I guess plan hijacking isn’t an exact science

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u/Is_It_A_Throwaway 5d ago

I do not know how they planned the highjacking, as in, "wait for 20 minutes since then you'll reach altitude". They were told told to get into the cockpit as soon as they could. Maybe they just had bad luck and the opportunity took longer. Also, I dunno about possible flight delays that day. Lastly, perhaps "simultaneous" did not meant "in the same hour" to them so it actually was all according to plan.

But it is known that the 4th plane, the one heading for DC, was piloted by Jarrah. It's an interesting case that one, kind of the opposite of Atta. He had an asian girlfriend in Germany and seemingly seemed torn between both words; his life in Germany and his life for the Jihad. It's really interesting to look at. The takeover of Flight 93 took about an hour, way longer than the others. Perhaps there was hesitation on Jarrah. He did hesitated to continue on the months leading up to the attack, which made him clash with Atta.

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u/gatsby365 5d ago

Weren’t all the flights from Boston?

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u/[deleted] 5d ago edited 4d ago

[deleted]

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u/gatsby365 5d ago

Huh, til

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u/imnotreallyapeach 5d ago

I can't help but wonder what the hijackers on the 2nd plane thought when they were coming in and saw the damage from the first plane? Would they have been .....pleased?

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u/Electronic_Slip2533 6d ago

This

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u/JThorough 6d ago

This

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u/JD_VANCES_COUCH 6d ago

That

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u/GTG1979 6d ago

And the other thing.

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u/roc8585 6d ago

IS SPARTAAAA

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u/corrieoh 6d ago

*Kicks the two commenter's above this guy ^ into a pit.

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u/JThorough 6d ago

This

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u/drama-guy 6d ago

...is CNN.

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u/Ths-Fkin-Guy 6d ago

N.O.R.E

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u/Ebolinp 6d ago

And my Axe!