On 9/11, 2001, the United States and the world watched in shocked disbelief as al-Qaeda hijacked passenger airliners were flown directly into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre, causing them to collapse into dust, blood and tears. Nearly 3000 people were killed.
The Pentagon, a symbol of the United States’ military prestige, was hit too, and a final airliner crashed when its heroic passengers fought back against the hijackers.
The experience was searing, enraging, and awakening for the United States, in a way the country hadn’t experienced since Pearl Harbour 60 years before. And like Pearl Harbour, the American military giant now unfurled itself, flexed its muscles and called its friends to assemble.
Just a month later, the United States and its allies retaliated in a massive invasion of Afghanistan, from where the attack was orchestrated and financed. But while the conventional militaries of the coalition overran Afghanistan’s Taliban, what the American people and government wanted most of all was the man who had masterminded 9/11. Revenge would not be considered to have been had until he had been found and brought to justice.
That demand sparked the largest, most expensive, most determined and most far-reaching manhunt the world has ever seen. From the mission control rooms of the CIA, to the barren wastes of the Afghan-Pakistani mountains, the hunt lasted a decade.
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