9/11 was a very low tech attack. It required understanding of the weather... which is very settled in September... I would imagine they were watching the weather and bought the tickets when the saw a decent long term forecast for several days out for Southern New England to DC. Their chosen targets were easy to spot from 50 miles away... very large and easy to hit. I don't believe they expected to "knock the towers over"... The attack was mostly to give USA a black eye... show that they could do multiple hijackings with destructive suicide outcomes... 4 planes and all the passengers plus whatever they took out at the targets. Hitting the pentagon was major PR and embarrassment to the great Satan. Hitting the "Trade Center" symbols of western economic domination and meddling was another black eye. I don't think their goal was to kill thousands as much as it was to jit those symbolic targets and show how vulnerable the West is... Trillion dollar defenses unable to stop a few suicidal people on a mission with box cutters!
Who was behind it? Probably whomever supported terrorist tactics. This would require a few religious fanatics... who believed in a cause.. not a lot of money... Element of surprise and the fact the the USA had not way to stop the sort of attack they would do.
|