9/11: A decade of war on terror

This weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks – an atrocity that turned the tide in international affairs.

Just a day after nearly 3,000 people lost their lives in the Twin Towers, Pentagon and aboard the hijacked planes, President George W. Bush called for a ‘War on Terror’. Promising to avenge the worst-ever attack on American soil Bush authorised the invasion into Iraq and Afghanistan amid national and international furore.

As our above graphic shows, while the ‘War on Terror’ intensified over the last decade, there were still more terror attacks that followed 9/11. 202 were killed in an al Qaida-linked bar bombing in Bali, an incident that claimed the lives of 28 Brits. Madrid was also struck by a bomb attack on its commuter trains killing 191 – a precursor to the 7/7 London bombings that killed 52 in 2005.

A number of similar plans have been foiled by British intelligence since but the Middle East remains plagued by terror attacks. 9/11 came full circle in May with the killing of Osama bin Laden – long seen as the architect of the September 11 atrocities. Ten years on and Iraq War still rages, a reminder that the aftermath of the attacks still continue.