Writing to Terrorism Experts

Te Maungarongo Maarie e-mailed Richard Barrett to ask him questions about September 11.

Richard Barret's Reply:

Thank you for your enquiry about the terrorist attacks in the United States on 9/11/2001.

1. Were there certain people they wanted to kill? No. The attacks killed random people. But the attack on the Pentagon was designed to hit Defence officials, and the planned attack on the US Capital (the 'plane crashed in Pennsylvania) was intended to hit law makers. It is also possible that this aircraft might have been aimed at the White House in which case the hijackers would have hoped to kill President Bush (although he was not there at that time).
2.Did the terrorists mean to crash? Yes. They intended to hit their targets with the 'planes. They chose long haul flights which they knew would be carrying a lot of fuel and hijacked them soon after take off.
3. Did the terrorists target 9/11 as the day? No. The hijackers chose the day, not Usama bin Laden. This means that they chose a day when everything would be ready, not a day that had been decided by Al-Qaida. The date 9/11 was chosen in August, so not very long before the attacks.

From,
Richard Barrett
Coordinator
Al-Qaida Taliban Monitoring Team
United Nations, New York

Richard Barrett is "an expert on Al Qaeda-related terrorism. He is based in New York. Since March 2004 he has been the United Nations Coordinator of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Implementation Monitoring Team, also known as the Al-Qaeda and Taliban Monitoring Team, appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General at the request of the Security Council."
http://www.theglobalexperts.org/experts/expert-location/north-america-expert-location/richard-barrett