The first plane struck at 8:46 AM; the second at 9:03 AM, the third at 9:37 AM, the fourth crashed at 10:03 AM

Attack in Washington D.C.

Tanjug/AP Photo/Suzanne Plunkett, File

Tanjug/AP Photo/Boudicon One, File

As was established later, a total of 2,996 people were killed, including 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists. Up to 25,000 people were injured.

Of the 19 Islamist extremists and Al-Qaeda members who took part in the terrorist attacks that day, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, including their leader, Osama bin Laden; two were from the United Arab Emirates, and one each was from Egypt and Lebanon.

A total of 2,606 people were killed in New York during the attacks and as a result of the collapse of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. Of those, 147 were passengers and crew members aboard the hijacked aircraft.

There were 2,192 civilian victims in New York, including emergency responders and medical personnel.

In addition, 343 firefighters and 71 police officers or other security personnel were killed.

In addition to U.S. citizens, the victims in New York included 372 foreign nationals from 102 countries. One of them was from Serbia.

At the Pentagon in Washington, 125 people were killed. Among them were 59 passengers and crew members aboard the hijacked aircraft.

Tanjug/AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File

A total of 40 people were killed aboard the aircraft that crashed in a field in Stonycreek Township, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, including passengers, crew members and the terrorists.

Just a few hours after the devastating terrorist attacks, U.S. officials announced that the attackers were members of the extremist Islamist organization Al-Qaeda.

A brutal retaliation followed

A major campaign was launched to crack down on Al-Qaeda and anyone believed to have assisted the organization in any way.

As part of what became known as the War on Terror, the campaign against Al-Qaeda and Islamist extremists, the United States launched a military intervention in Afghanistan after determining that the Taliban regime there was supporting Osama bin Laden’s network.

The situation was paradoxical in some respects, as the Islamist movement known as the Taliban had managed to seize power in Kabul largely thanks to the extensive support and arms it had received from the United States.

During the 1980s, U.S. intelligence agencies recruited numerous Islamist extremists as part of the fight against the Soviets, including Osama bin Laden, the founder of Al-Qaeda, as well as Afghan Taliban fighters.

Saudi billionaire bin Laden, a member of one of the most influential and wealthiest families in the country, strongly supported the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, which at the time was directed against the Soviets and their local allies.

The cooperation continued even after the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan. In the 1990s, Islamist extremists from Osama bin Laden’s network were involved in Bosnia against the Serbs, and later in Albania and Kosovo and Metohija, again as U.S. allies, even though Bin Laden himself had been labeled a dangerous terrorist by the latter half of that decade.

The final capture of Bin Laden

SPENCER PLATT / Getty images / Profimedia

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the search for Bin Laden would continue for years.

The efforts of U.S. intelligence and security agencies culminated on May 2, 2011, when Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, in Pakistan’s Hazara region.

The World Trade Center site in Manhattan and the surrounding area were cleared over the course of eight months following the terrorist attacks, while the Pentagon in Washington took a full year to repair.

A memorial was built at the site of the tragedy in Manhattan, featuring a grove of 442 oak trees. A pear tree that miraculously survived the devastating events of September 11, 2001, buried beneath the rubble of concrete and steel, was also preserved.

Memorials were also established at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.

The 25th anniversary of the devastating terrorist attacks carried out by Islamist extremists against the United States serves as an opportunity to remember the tragic victims of such senseless violence.