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https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks

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The plot

The September 11 attacks were precipitated in large part because Osama bin Laden, the leader of the militant Islamic organization al-Qaeda, held naive beliefs about the United States in the run-up to the attacks. Abu Walid al-Masri, an Egyptian who was a bin Laden associate in Afghanistan in the 1980s and '90s, explained that, in the years prior to the attacks, bin Laden became increasingly convinced that America was weak. "He believed that the United States was much weaker than some of those around him thought," Masri remembered, and "as evidence he referred to what happened to the United States in Beirut when the bombing of the Marines base led them to flee from Lebanon," referring to the destruction of the marine barracks there in 1983 ( see 1983 Beirut barracks bombings), which killed 241 American servicemen. Bin Laden believed that the United States was a "paper tiger," a belief shaped not just by America's departure from Lebanon following the marine barracks bombing but also by the withdrawal of American forces from Somalia in 1993, following the deaths of 18 U.S. servicemen in Mogadishu, and the American pullout from Vietnam in the 1970s.

The key operational planner of the September 11 attacks was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (often referred to simply as "KSM" in the later 9/11 Commission Report and in the media), who had spent his youth in Kuwait. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed became active in the Muslim Brotherhood, which he joined at age 16, and then went to the United States to attend college, receiving a degree from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in 1986. Afterward he traveled to Pakistan and then Afghanistan to wage jihad against the Soviet Union, which had launched an invasion against Afghanistan in 1979.

According to Yosri Fouda, a journalist at the Arabic-language cable television channel Al Jazeera who interviewed him in 2002, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed planned to blow up some dozen American planes in Asia during the mid-1990s, a plot (known as " Bojinka ") that failed, "but the dream of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed never faded. And I think by putting his hand in the hands of bin Laden, he realized that now he stood a chance of bringing about his long awaited dream."

In 1996 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed met bin Laden in Tora Bora, Afghanistan. The 9-11 Commission (formally the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States), set up in 2002 by U.S. Pres. George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress to investigate the attacks of 2001, explained that it was then that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "presented a proposal for an operation that would involve training pilots who would crash planes into buildings in the United States." Khalid Sheikh Mohammed dreamed up the tactical innovation of using hijacked planes to attack the United States, al-Qaeda provided the personnel, money, and logistical support to execute the operation, and bin Laden wove the attacks on New York and Washington into a larger strategic framework of attacking the "far enemy"-the United States-in order to bring about regime change across the Middle East.

The September 11 plot demonstrated that al-Qaeda was an organization of global reach. The plot played out across the globe with planning meetings in Malaysia, operatives taking flight lessons in the United States, coordination by plot leaders based in Hamburg, Germany, money transfers from Dubai, and recruitment of suicide operatives from countries around the Middle East-all activities that were ultimately overseen by al-Qaeda's leaders in Afghanistan.

Key parts of the September 11 plot took shape in Hamburg. Four of the key pilots and planners in the "Hamburg cell" who would take operational control of the September 11 attacks, including the lead hijacker Mohammed Atta, had a chance meeting on a train in Germany in 1999 with an Islamist militant who struck up a conversation with them about fighting jihad in the Russian republic of Chechnya. The militant put the Hamburg cell in touch with an al-Qaeda operative living in Germany who explained that it was difficult to get to Chechnya at that time, because many travelers were being detained in Georgia. He recommended they go to Afghanistan instead.

Although Afghanistan was critical to the rise of al-Qaeda, it was the experience that some of the plotters acquired in the West that made them simultaneously more zealous and better equipped to carry out the attacks. Three of the four plotters who would pilot the hijacked planes on September 11 and one of the key planners, Ramzi Binalshibh, became more radical while living in Hamburg. Some combination of perceived or real discrimination, alienation, and homesickness seems to have turned them all in a more militant direction. Increasingly cutting themselves off from the outside world, they gradually radicalized each other, and eventually the friends decided to wage battle in bin Laden's global jihad, setting off for Afghanistan in 1999 in search of al-Qaeda.

Atta and the other members of the Hamburg group arrived in Afghanistan in 1999 right at the moment that the September 11 plot was beginning to take shape. Bin Laden and his military commander Muhammad Atef realized that Atta and his fellow Western-educated jihadists were far better suited to lead the attacks on Washington and New York than the men they had already recruited, leading bin Laden to appoint Atta to head the operation.

The hijackers, most of whom were from Saudi Arabia, established themselves in the United States, many well in advance of the attacks. They traveled in small groups, and some of them received commercial flight training.

Throughout his stay in the United States, Atta kept Binalshibh updated on the plot's progress via e-mail. To cloak his activities, Atta wrote the messages as if he were writing to his girlfriend "Jenny," using innocuous code to inform Binalshibh that they were almost complete in their training and readiness for the attacks. Atta wrote in one message, "The first semester commences in three weeks...Nineteen certificates for private education and four exams." The referenced 19 "certificates" were code that identified the 19 al-Qaeda hijackers, while the four "exams" identified the targets of the attacks.

In the early morning of August 29, 2001, Atta called Binalshibh and said he had a riddle that he was trying to solve: "Two sticks, a dash and a cake with a stick down-what is it?" After considering the question, Binalshibh realized that Atta was telling him that the attacks would occur in two weeks-the two sticks being the number 11 and the cake with a stick down a 9. Putting it together, it meant that the attacks would occur on 11-9, or 11 September (in most countries the day precedes the month in numeric dates, but in the United States the month precedes the day; hence, it was 9-11 in the United States). On September 5 Binalshibh left Germany for Pakistan. Once there he sent a messenger to Afghanistan to inform bin Laden about both the day of the attack and its scope.

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September 11 attacks | History, Summary, Location, Timeline, Casualties, & Facts

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September 11 attacks, series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks committed in 2001 by 19 militants associated with Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda against targets in the United States, the deadliest terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in U.S. history. Over 3,000 people died in the attacks and rescue efforts.

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https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190620-how-muslims-became-the-good-guys-on-tv

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One of Hollywood's many ugly truths is that, for all its claims to be a progressive industry, it has relied heavily on racial and ethnic stereotypes, catering to and shaping the prejudices that are prevalent amongst its audience. This is especially true when it comes to who it chooses as its villains.

Even though the Cold War ended decades ago, Russians have remained a favoured variety of bad guy, and Germans have also had a rough ride thanks to the countless number of Nazi evildoers who have appeared on screen since World War Two.

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But since the turn of the millennium, the demographic who has undoubtedly been the greatest single target for demonisation are Muslim-Arabs. Even before the events of 9/11, they found themselves portrayed variously as sleazy oil rich sex pests, exotic subservient women, misogynists and/or militant terrorists. But the tragedy of September 11 2001 and the subsequent war on terror only exacerbated their negative typecasting.

Despite the fact that members of the far right and white supremacist movements are responsible for carrying out the overwhelming majority of extremist-related murders in the US in the last 15 years, according to Hollywood it has been Muslims who the public have had to fear the most. Thanks to a spate of post-9/11 thriller series like 24, or Sleeper Cell, it seemed like US television had made Islam - and its adherents - enemy number one.
The most Islamophobic show on TV?
However no show has encapsulated former US President George W Bush's oppositional "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" outlook quite like the Showtime series Homeland, where Muslim characters have been either terrorists or willing collaborators with the US government. It returns later this year for an eighth and final series - and for many in the Muslim community, its end can't come soon enough.

Since it premiered in 2011, the drama has proved to be one of the most bigoted shows on television. Apart from incorporating every single negative stereotype about Muslims one could think of, it has gone out of its way to paint them as a hidden danger to Americans.

For a show that has won critical acclaim and became a pop culture phenomenon - even former President Obama was a huge fan - it's depressing how little importance the showrunners have given to getting basic details about the Islamic world right over the years. There was an inexplicable scene involving the first series' chief antagonist, US military Muslim convert Nicholas Brody, burying the Koran because it had been 'desecrated'; Arab characters have been given Persian names, and the beautiful and picturesque city of Islamabad was depicted as a "grimy hellhole and war zone". The list goes on.

Sue Obeidi, the Director of the Hollywood Bureau for America's Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), notes that the entertainment industry's promotion of these negative stereotypes has a detrimental impact on Western society because it "creates a situation where someone - who is not of that faith or that community - can form opinions of that community based on information that is so stereotypical and false that it can lead to horrible consequences".

Studies have shown a direct correlation between people's exposure to negative portrayals of Muslims in the media and their willingness to support policies that are harmful to Muslims or curtail their rights - as well as for military action against them. On the other hand, exposure to positive footage, or direct contact or with Muslims, has been shown to have had the opposite effect.
The Hollywood star taking a stand
But, as Obeidi explains, authentic representation is important not only because it influences how other people see Muslims - but also how Muslims see themselves. In 2017, the problem was brought home by Riz Ahmed, star of Rogue One and Venom, and perhaps the most prominent Muslim actor working in Hollywood today. In a speech at Britain's House of Commons, he warned that a lack of diverse representation on television screens was leaving Muslims vulnerable to extremist propaganda. "In the mind of the Isis recruit, he's a version of James Bond, right? Everyone thinks they're the good guy. Have you seen some of the Isis propaganda videos? They're cut like action movies. Where's the counter-narrative? Where are we telling these kids that they can be heroes in our stories?"

Outfits like the Islamic State group frame their recruits as Muslim heroes, in a conscious effort to take advantage of that gap in representation by the West.

"People are looking for the message that they belong, that they are part of something, that they are seen and heard and that despite, or perhaps because of, their experience, they are valued," said Ahmed. "They want to feel represented. In that task we have failed."

Might the end of Homeland also mark the end of an Islamophobic TV era? Certainly, US television networks and showrunners have begun to take note of Muslim concerns. In the last few years, a wave of US thrillers have introduced Muslim heroes into their storylines, perhaps in a self-conscious attempt to mitigate the previous negativity.
The new Muslim heroes
Since it began in 2003, the NCIS police procedural franchise has courted a lot of controversy when it comes to its portrayals of Muslims, including Muslim-Americans, with critics accusing it of reinforcing the notion that every Muslim is a potential terrorist. However, it has done some commendable course correcting on its spin-off, NCIS: Los Angeles, now in its 10th series.

One of its protagonists, Sam Hanna (a Senior NCIS Special Agent and former Navy Seal played by LL Cool J) definitively came out as Muslim in the season 9 episode The Silo, making him one of the first Muslim lead characters on a major US television series. However his faith is seen as only one aspect of a man who is wholesome, patriotic and all-American.

This year, they also introduced a hijab-wearing character, Special Agent Fatima Namazi - yet took great care not to make her religion the focal point of the role. Instead they added in dialogue that fleshed her out as an authentic Beverly Hills girl, with expensive tastes, who recommends "Madeo for Italian food, Murat's for your tailoring" and "of course, pizza from Mulberrys". In fact, the only reference to her hijab was made by a judgemental Muslim extremist, who sneered that she wore a hijab, but was "nothing more than a spoiled American girl".

Similarly, Blindspot, a US crime drama series which has just been renewed for its fifth and final season on NBC, also has a hijab-wearing character, Afreen, who works for the FBI. But no unnecessary attention is drawn to her headscarf, and the character is more defined by her dorky jokes. It's a step forward - for while not as harmful as overt demonisation, the constant subtle exoticisation of Muslims - via the emphasis on items or garb such as hijabs, keffiyehs, prayer mats and prayer beads - that even well-intentioned directors or showrunners are guilty of, is equally unhelpful.

The normalisation of these hijab-wearing female characters also stands in stark contrast to how Homeland presented Fara, a Muslim CIA agent, who pointedly got lambasted by her superior, Saul - often seen as the moral compass of the show - for disrespecting her colleagues by wearing a hijab because it was a symbolic reminder of their enemies. Tellingly, as the show progressed, and she was shown to be a committed agent, she stopped wearing the hijab without much explanation.
Muslim and patriotic
Another show that has taken steps to correct old prejudices is Amazon's reboot of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series, which launched last year and has recast the character of Ryan's boss, CIA director James Greer (Wendell Pierce) as an African-American convert to Islam. In the first series, there was a memorable scene where he reprimanded a member of French law enforcement, who didn't realise he was Muslim, for holding Islamophobic views.

The presence of such Muslim characters, patriotic and innately good, as heroes or in positions of leadership, feels like an important cultural step - a conscious statement of support by Hollywood for the fact that not only can Muslims align with American values, but they are putting their lives on the line to safeguard them every day. Additionally, the writing of these shows has evolved to demonstrate that people who practice Islam peacefully and positively are the norm, rather than the exception. Homeland, for example, has exploited stereotypes even when purporting to portray a 'good' Muslim character such as Danny Galvez: a CIA agent who was immediately brought under suspicion after he revealed his religion. He was then proved loyal to his country and fellow agents after all - as if such a development should constitute a 'twist'.

Another show making waves in this area, becoming CBS's most-watched new series last year, is FBI. It is the first major action series on US television to cast a Muslim-Arab actor to play one of its protagonists. Zeeko Zaki stars as Special Agent OA Zidan, a character who also happens to be of the same faith and ethnicity as the actor.

In an interview with Harper's Bazaar, Zaki revealed that before his big break, he was constantly offered stereotypical roles playing terrorists or bad guys. "The industry will typecast you until they ethically can't do it anymore. There needs to be a cultural change."

But while this progress in Muslim representation on the small screen is very welcome, it's mostly been confined to the thriller or geo-political genre. Stories of regular, everyday Muslims are still hard to come by.

"Things will improve both on screen and off screen when Muslim writers are commissioned to tell their own stories," say Shaf Choudry and Sadia Habib, the creators of the Riz Test - a Muslim equivalent of the Bechdel test inspired by Riz Ahmed's speech. If there is any identifiably Muslim character in a movie, the Riz Test team evaluate whether the character talks about, is a victim, or the perpetrator of terrorism; whether the character is presented as irrationally angry, superstitious, culturally backwards, anti-modern or presented as a threat to the Western way of life; or whether the character is a misogynistic male or an oppressed female. Displaying even one of these characteristics means the film fails the test.

"In order for things to change, the industry needs to understand the scale of the problem, something that the Riz Test hopes to achieve," they say.
Authenticity over virtue
Reza Aslan, a bestselling US author and TV producer, argues that what's needed is not more positive characterisations of Muslims, as such, but more authentic and nuanced portrayals. "The goal that we need to be shooting for is portrayals of characters whose Muslim identity is just one factor in the multiplicity of identities that they have that give them their motivations," says Aslan.

However he believes that such change is already happening. "There's no question about it," he says. "It's improving in the sense that more Muslim storytellers, more Muslim actors, Muslim writers are being given opportunities to tell their stories. But most importantly it's improving because we're seeing more Muslim execs and more Muslim producers working in studios: in other words, more Muslim decision makers. And that, I think, is what is having probably the biggest and most profound difference in how Muslims are portrayed in Hollywood."

Obeidi agrees. "I used to say we're turning the corner - now I say we turned the corner," she says. "We are seeing more Muslim characters and narratives, especially on TV. The debut of Hulu's Ramy is a game changer." Ramy is a new comedy about a millennial Muslim, starring Egyptian American comedian Ramy Youssef, which premiered last month to rave reviews, earning comparisons to Lena Dunham's Girls.

Obeidi acknowledges that there is still a long way to go for Muslim experiences on screen to become mainstream or normalised. "The reality is, this journey in the industry is not a destination. No community that is marginalised is going to arrive at the perfect representation for a while. Being included is important, but being included in a fair and nuanced manner is even more important."

So, moving beyond the idea of Muslims as good or bad guys altogether, shows depicting regular people who happen to be Muslim, like Ramy and Aziz Ansari's Master of None - or movies like The Big Sick - are imperative in bringing about this much-needed change. "Hollywood doesn't have good or bad motivations," says Aslan. "Hollywood has one motivation. A single motivation. And that's to make money. That's all it thinks about. It's all it cares about. It doesn't want to do good in the world. It doesn't want to do bad in the world. It wants to make money. And so, if you can convince Hollywood - and this is something that I've been doing for the last 10 years - that you can make money by not pedalling in stereotypes about brown people, then they'll stop doing so."
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One of Hollywood's many ugly truths is that, for all its claims to be a progressive industry, it has relied heavily on racial and ethnic stereotypes, catering to and shaping the prejudices that are prevalent amongst its audience. This is especially true when it comes to who it chooses as its villains.

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Muslims and Representation in the Media after 9 11

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https://theconversation.com/9-11-how-politicians-and-the-media-turned-terrorism-into-an-islamic-issue-167733

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9/11: how politicians and the media turned terrorism into an Islamic issue

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Most terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, yet thanks to 9/11 politicians and the media, that’s the way it is presented to the public.