9/11 in retrospect Part 1: How a decade of conflict made 2001 ‘year of the terrorist’

The scale of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US was unprecedented, but the likelihood of a major incident involving jihadists and what had become the American ‘hyperpower’ was no surprise. GSN observed in 1998, years after it had reported on the threat posed by Osama Bin Laden, that there was “little problem in gaining warning of the intentions of America’s foes to attack”. Here, GSN raids its huge archive to report on the run up to the horror of 20 years ago. A Part 2 will cover 9/11’s aftermath and George W Bush’s ‘global war on terror’, which removed the Taliban from Kabul but saw the US bogged down with devastating consequences in Iraq.