Twenty tumultuous years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have yielded an all-out U.S. military assault on Islamist terrorist groups around the world, with particular focus on al-Qaida, the Taliban and the al-Qaida offshoot that came to be known as the Islamic State. That latter group proved to be so radical that even al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden disavowed it.
Over the years, the names of those who drove the daily headlines have largely faded from public view. Some are dead, others are imprisoned, and others have seen their own hardline voices drowned out by even more extremist radicals. On both sides in the war on terrorism, the once-fearsome and powerful have fallen. The short-term victors in the 9/11 aftermath now appear vanquished, and the wars launched in retaliation for 9/11 remain as unresolved as before. Following is an update on many of the major players and where they are today:
Osama bin Laden, the son of a billionaire construction magnate, used most of his own personal wealth to found and fund al-Qaida. Bin Laden spent years on the run, bouncing between North Africa and southwestern Asia before forming an alliance with the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan. His group staged the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen and, finally, the 9/11 attacks. Bin Laden escaped a 2001 U.S. military assault on his hideout in Tora Bora, Afghanistan, then disappeared. Ten years later, a top-secret surveillance and intelligence effort determined that bin Laden and his family were hiding out in a compound near Pakistan’s military academy in Abbottabad. A Navy SEALs raid, commanded by Adm. William McRaven, resulted in bin Laden’s death and the seizure of a massive trove of documents, videos and computer files.
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, the young American who was training with the Taliban in northern Afghanistan when 9/11 happened, was later captured on Nov. 25, 2001, inside a bunker heavily laden with explosives near the town of Sheberghan. His captors labeled him the “American Taliban.†Lindh faced a U.S. trial and was convicted on multiple terrorism-related counts. After serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence, Lindh, now 40, was released on probation in 2019. He has not renounced radical Islamist thought and is reported in an interview to have expressed sympathy for the Islamic State.
was Defense secretary on 9/11 and assisted rescuers after a hijacked plane slammed into the Pentagon. He helped strategize the initial U.S. attacks that led to the quick routing of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan. But it was his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, who insisted the United States turn its attention to Iraq. That notion stuck with Rumsfeld, who barely a year after the attacks joined the effort to persuade President George W. Bush to invade. The withdrawal of forces and equipment from Afghanistan to feed the Iraq war led to declining troop morale in Afghanistan and opened the door to the Taliban resurgence that, today, has led to that group’s resumption of power. The prolonged Iraq occupation and mounting U.S. casualties was so unpopular with U.S. voters that Bush wound up sacking Rumsfeld after Republicans lost the 2006 mid-term elections. Rumsfeld retired to his home in Taos, New Mexico, and died of multiple myeloma last June.
made the legally dubious decision as vice president on 9/11 to take command at the White House from an underground bunker. He issued the order to close U.S. airspace and for Air Force warplanes to shoot any aircraft, including passenger planes, out of the sky. He famously warned that the coming wars would force the United States to go to “the dark side,†which is exactly what followed with secret kidnappings, renditions and waterboarding torture of terrorism suspects. Cheney never yielded in his defense of such interrogation techniques and rivaled President Bush in his popularity among conservatives. He remained popular even after shooting an acquaintance in the face while hunting. Bush once jokingly referred to Cheney as “Darth Vader.†Cheney retired to his ranch in Wyoming and championed the U.S. House candidacy of his conservative daughter, now-U.S. Rep. Lynn Cheney. But after both publicly criticized President Donald Trump, the Cheneys are now rejected as pariahs in their own party.
George W. Bush, the U.S. president who was informed of the 9/11 attacks while reading with children in a Florida elementary classroom, remained steadfast through his eight years in office that he made the right decision to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq. But perhaps reflecting the overwhelming responsibility of his decisions and the massive casualties suffered by U.S. service members, he devoted much of his time to visiting wounded warriors, many missing arms or legs, and accompanying them on bike rides and other activities. He retired to his home in Dallas, where he has . This year he published a book focusing on the immigration problem but has avoided commenting on what became of Iraq and Afghanistan after he left office.
Tony Blair, who was Britain’s prime minister when 9/11 occurred, was instrumental in rallying NATO forces to join the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan. Blair established a close working relationship with the Bush administration and became its chief international defender when U.S. conduct abroad came under attack. Blair insisted throughout his tenure that the U.S.-British special relationship, dating back to the two world wars, took primacy over all other political considerations. And it was on that basis that he became the chief international salesman for the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Blair continued to be a staunch defender of both wars and, although reluctant to criticize any U.S. leader publicly, excoriated President Joe Biden’s Afghanistan-withdrawal decision, labeling it “â€
is a name that didn’t typically make the headlines in the chaotic days following the 9/11 attacks. But his role as CIA counselor was crucial in giving Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld the legal tools they needed to go after terrorism suspects. He provided them the legal justification for the waterboarding torture of 9/11 suspects and for launching unmanned drone strikes against supposed terrorist hideouts. After civilians repeatedly turned up as the casualties in those strikes, the mood in Afghanistan soured against the U.S. occupation, creating a fertile recruiting ground for the Taliban. Rizzo died on Aug. 3 at age 73.
Adm. Bill McRaven, the Navy SEAL who commanded the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, retired as commander of all U.S. Special Operations forces in 2011. He served as chancellor of the University of Texas from 2015 to 2018. He has been an outspoken supporter of restricting civilian access to military-style firearms. Though fiercely non-partisan, he emerged as a sharp critic of Trump.
, identified in the official 9/11 report as the 9/11 mastermind, remained at large until his capture in Pakistan in 2003. After being tortured in various secret locations abroad, he was transferred to the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay in late 2006 and remains there today. He is reported to have confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attacks along with the Bali nightclub bombing in Indonesia, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl. His confessions, however, are likely to face significant challenges in court, as he is reported to have been waterboarded 183 times.
Hamid Karzai is the Afghan installed by the United States to lead the new civilian government following the Taliban’s collapse in 2001. Karzai survived multiple assassination attempts and remained in office until 2014. During his entire tenure, Karzai failed to unite the country and settled for various forms of governance that allowed powerful anti-Taliban warlords to rule in the regions under their military domination. He was frequently derided as the “mayor of Kabul†for his apparent lack of authority beyond the boundaries of the national capital. Karzai was succeeded in the presidential palace by Ashraf Ghani, an academic and co-author of the 2008 book, “Fixing Failed States.†Ghani failed miserably at fixing his own failed state and secretly fled the country in August as Taliban troops reached the outskirts of Kabul. Karzai, meanwhile, is reportedly negotiating with the Taliban on the formation of a new government.
earned the nickname “America’s mayor†for his extraordinary leadership as New York’s mayor during the rescue-and-recovery phase after the 9/11 attacks. His popularity was such that, had a fellow Republican not been the White House incumbent, Giuliani could have coasted to victory in a presidential election. But the passage of time massively eroded Giuliani’s standing. His public pronouncements twisted logic and yielded confusion. He teamed up with Trump as his personal lawyer, using lies and unethical tactics to defend the indefensible, including Trump’s attempt to extort the leader of Ukraine. On Jan. 6, he stood beside Trump and repeated the lie that Democrats stole the 2020 election, then urged protesters to head to Capitol Hill and launch a “trial by combat.†His offices have been raided by the FBI as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. And he was shown in an embarrassing bedroom encounter with a woman not his wife in the film “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.â€