Further Updates On Terrorist Attack

Further news of the events going on around the world following the attacks earlier today on New York and Washington. To follow things even more closely, you are encouraged to join realtime CNN coverage in channel #cnn_newsfeed on irc.idlenet.org. (Doubtless there are other similar IRC and IM feeds going on -- please post them in comments.) In addition to the news below, note that CNN has reported that multiple suspects were arrested with a van loaded with explosives in the vicinity of New York's George Washington Bridge. Update: 09/12 04:29 AM GMT by T : Many readers have reported that the van in question was found not to contain explosives, though its occupants were held for questioning. And Giacomo DiGrigoli, international product manager at PayPal.com, wrote with word of a donation fund on the PayPal website where folks can make donations to the American Red Cross.

Contradicting earlier reports, reader Adam Brookman writes: "I can guarantee that no car bomb went off in front of the State Dept. in DC. My father is part of the critical personel at State dept. When I read that I called him. He said he heard the same thing and he also heard that the building was hit by a plane, but neither were true."

Worth reading is this analysis of the motives and some possible suspects in today's violence, at Jane's International Security News. They've picked three plausible attackers. Motive aside, Jack Bryar has a convincing take on who is really most hurt by the attacks today.

babyruth writes: "amazon.com has a Red Cross Relief fund set up on their homepage, where you can contribute online. Only several hundred have contributed so far, let the power of /. help!" Iridium provides a link straight to the donations page, noting that "All standard fees are waived -- all proceeds go directly to the Red Cross." Of course, the Red Cross is -still- in desperate need of blood. If you can donate, please call 1-800-HELP-NOW to find the donation center nearest to you.

iggyflashbulb writes: "CNN reports some oddball group not associated with bin Laden is attacking Kabul at night. Are they taking advantage of the NY situation or did they create it?"

An anonymous reader writes: "Following the sad (and outrageous) mess of these terrorist attacks, results are already starting to impact the country. When a RSM failed on one of our 5500 Ciscos, we recieved the following notice

'Due to a national emergency completion of your case, delivery of your parts or engineer will be delayed until further notice. Several areas of the country have restricted transportation and currently no air traffic is available. Cisco will notify you as soon a we are able to dispatch your order.'

There doesn't seem to any information on Cisco's site."

CERT is in action as well: SilentTone writes: "Ween Hall at Carnegie-Mellon University was evacuated today so the the Computer Emergency Response Team could go into action."

Many readers have been assembling mirrors for the overloaded news sites of the world. Jon Anhold writes: "I've compiled more photos and what not, mirrored many of the sites around to help the load. They're available here: http://ziggy.dreamland.net/wtc/"

Owen Bossola writes: "This is a simple webpage I put up with shots I took all day of the World Trade Center. I go to school across the river at Stevens Institute of Technology and I watched the whole thing from campus. It is absolutely nuts, I'm looking out my window and for the first time, downtown NYC is dark, and there aren't two large buildings gleaming back at me."

rhyder writes: "I was last in the World Trade Center and the attached World Financial Center on Saturday evening. Many people I know work in those buildings, even more live and work in the shadow of those 2 towers.

From the Port Authority of NY and NJ:

1. The Port Authority
   
2. Trade Center Concourse Level Map
   
3. Trade Center Plaza Level Map
   
4. Trade Center Complex Overview
   
5. Area Map showing southern tip of Manhattan and the Trade Center location."

An Anonymous Coward seeks more information about an interview that Washington area readers may be able to provide: He writes: "Fox News channel 5 (local around 6:30ish E.S.T) this evening had an interview with a witness about what he saw at the Pentagon the moment of impact. His interview was the basic 'I was in my car looked to my side..blah blah' but then he said something totally unexpected. He observed a second airplane immediately swing behind the first in a follow like manner and swoop down on the Pentagon only to pull up at the last second, out of the smoke cloud, and fly away. His description of the plane was pretty detailed, saying it was propeller-driven ... He stated everyone around him who were also outside their cars saw the SECOND Airplane following the first and it was also going in."

Anyone else able to confirm this rumor?

Jon Bishop asks: "Why Today? Why did this attack happen on September 11, 2001. Here is a guess. I played with the date commonly used for programming. YYYYMMDD returns 20010911. 911...in 2001. Is this play on numbers intentional or coincidence?" It may be significant that the anniversary of a Congressional resolution "favoring a Jewish homeland in Palestine" falls on this date. Then again, if you go back a century or two, you may find a lot of anniversaries that seem just as significant.

Carl Merritt writes: "Since many sites seem to be creaking under the load today I've dumped every relevant picture and video I can find onto my server, please feel free to suck up some of my unused bandwidth with downloads or links: http://www.binaryvista.com/WTC/ I'll probably leave it up for a couple weeks, or until CNN asks me to remove their pictures ;-)."

An Anonymous Coward writes "I just want to remind everyone that there is still active air cover over at least Chicago. A tanker is orbiting O'Hare and at least what appear to be two F-15s are making the rounds. If you would like more information including frequencies I suggest subscribing to the CARMA mailing list at QTH.net for up to date monitoring information."

Disheartening news from Egypt: soulflakes points to this story of some Egyptians celebrating the attacks today. Here's a BBC piece which indicates the feeling is shared in some other African countries. This doesn't mean that all or most people in any country feel the same way.

yoda389 writes: "I'm getting reports from friends that gas prices are jumping to as much as $5.00 a gallon. There are huge lines at all gas stations here in my hometown someplace in Wisconsin." And ikohl1 writes: "A friend just informed me of how gas prices were raised to $3.50 in a town near where i live. I didn't believe him at first but I found this article on Yahoo."

Gas prices may fluctuate in the short term, but in the long haul, effects on exports of goods physical and abstract may be affected just as drastically: elliotj writes: "MSNBC has a Steven Levy opinion piece on the possible implications of today's attack on America and governmental policy on encryption export restrictions. Personally, I think we need to determine exactly what happened before blaming physical or electronic security measures for a role in the tragedy. I heard the planes were hi-jacked with knives ... that doesn't sound very high-tech or a sign of significant security failings to me. It is the act itself that is so shocking and sickening."

Comments

Re:E-word

[jallen02]

No we can't. We must fight this TOOTH AND NAIL. We can't change our (americans) lives because of the terrorist attack. If we lose even the slightest amount of freedom the terrorists have WON.

We must fight the good fight and not let people in congress pass new laws. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.".

It is a tragic and sad thing that has happened. This is an attack on humanity and civilization and the world as a whole, especially americans tne symbol of freedom and capitalism CANNOT bend, we cannot break, we cannot even flex.

Will I still fly American Airlines? Yep. I always have and always will.

I am not going to change my ways of exercising my freedoms for terroists, not now, not ever.

I think something like this should give everyone new perspective, but I don't think new laws will protect us at all. Just take away our freedoms and let the terrorists win.

Jeremy

Business As Usual!

[Drake42]

It is very important that we all get back to 'business as usual' as quickly and calmly as possible. If we give in to terrified speculation, hording gas, selling our stock or other panic moves that will fsck our country then we may as well throw up our hands and say, "Terrorists Win!"

If we get back to business and focus on providing support for families and blood for the wounded we will come out of this OK.

God Bless,

Jason Henriksen

Re:oh boy.... read this:

[fobbman]

Yeah, and the village idiot will ascend to the throne (a widely-distributed fake Nostradamus prophecy).

Nostradamus wrote his "prophecies" in a language that only he knew in fear of death. Scholars have been trying to translate his ramblings for hundreds of years and every once in awhile they try and take their "translations" and compare them to modern events. Heck, most studies of his work said that he had no further predictions after 2000/05/05 which was widely viewed to be his prediction of the end of the world. Guess what? We're still here.

More Info on possible reasons the WTC Collapsed

[vAMP]

This is quite a nice page on why the WTC collapsed.
Im surprised how quick the response is to write these articles.

http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm

Re:Could this be left-wing extremists?

[fobbman]

Sorry, don't buy it. How many extreme greenies know how to fly jumbo jets? I doubt that the American pilots would be able to be convinced to crash their planes into those buildings. We'll likely find out that the pilots were killed before they crashed and that the hijackers were at the controls.

Afghanistan isn't a functioning country

[Animats]

The Afghanistan entry in the CIA World Factbook is worth reading. Foreign policy towards Afghanistan was botched by both the US and the USSR. The country has been in wars, both external and internal, for the last 22 years. The USSR invaded in 1979, the US sponsored anti-USSR groups who kicked the USSR out around 1989, and the result was a mess of armed factions, not a country. There's no real central government left; the Taliban is just the biggest armed faction.

So there's no country to go to war with. It's another mess like Bosnia. There are 25 million people in an area the size of Texas, some of whom hate the US and some who don't. Now what?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

"This is an act of war!"

[magi]

No shit?

Americans probably won't find this very comforting right now, but I'll give a short newsbreak: Unless you haven't noticed, you are in war, have been for a long time!

Look, for the last 50 years, Americans have been bombing cities here and there all over the world, leaving hundreds of thousands if not millions people dead, charred, mothers and brothers wailing over their graves. Sure, Americans were always the good guys, and sure, American bombs only killed soldiers. But hey, even innocent people do die in wars. America just got it first civilian casualties in 50 years!

So, we can now wait to see how the American reaction will be different from the reaction of those rag-head mad-dog arabs, who cry for eternal revenge after their relatives have been killed and homes bombed to ground.

Really, get over it.

Hannan Ashrawi (sp?) talks

[uebernewby]

Hannan Ashrawi (sp???), former Palestinian spokeswoman back when it seemed the peace talks were going somewhere, but since not seen as often in public anymore because she disagrees with the way Arafat is running the Palestinian Authority, just spoke on CNN about the "Palestinians dancing in the street" footage we've all seen.

She claimed the people shown celebrating and dancing are a *very* small minority group and do not in any way represent Palestinians as a whole. Moreover, though small groups of people may have been celebrating when they heard America was hit, celebrations soon subsided when it became clear that possibly thousands had been killed. The general attitude in the West Bank and Gaza is one of horror, disgust and sympathy with American victims.

Bear in mind that Ashrawi (I really should've looked this up, sorry) is one of the most moderate Palestinians around and that she's also one of very few Palestinians with some authority who's got any idea about pr Western style (as in, she knows it's not a good idea to scream "I will sacrifice *all* of my sons for Allah to make Israel suffer the way we suffer" when a suicide bomber's just blown up a kiddie disco in Tel Aviv - it doesn't do the Palestinian cause any good in the Western eye) so she's bound to say something like this.

However, if you think about it, she may, partly, be right. I myself have only seen that footage with the guy handing out free food to passersby (you know which footage I mean). Consider that in the 22 hrs since it happened, there hasn't been any new footage of Palestinians dancing in the street. It's always the same clip. If this celebration was going on on any substantial scale, I should think we would've seen more footage of it.

Disclaimer: I'm not Palestinian, nor am I Israeli, nor am I sympathetic to either cause (in the sense that I don't believe either people should be destroyed to give the other Lebensraum)

Re:Few things of the top of my head

[be-fan]

2. I strongly disagree with Bush claiming these attacks being "cowardly acts". I think, that organizing and implementing such plan takes extreme courage, even if performed by a mad man, which I don't think is a case. One should have a clear head to plan all this.
>>>>>>>>>>>
There is no way anybody can argue that this is not an act of a coward. I'm muslim, and I hate these terrorists for making all muslims out to be cowards. These people are cowards on several points:
A) They did not officially declare war. Attacking a country at peace is the act of a coward.
B) They attacked civilians who were just going to work in the morning. These people aren't the ones responsible for America's foreign policy, they aren't the ones championing capitalism all over the world. They were simply people going to work in the morning. Killing in war is something horrible, but maybe unavoidable. Killing in peace is just murder.
C) They might have had a clear head, but being smart (no doubt, whoever organized this was smart as hell) doesn't make one any less evil.
D) It takes no courage to take out ones anger on innocents. It takes real courage to stand up for one's self within the framework of society.

We don't live in a world anymore where violence is condoned. The majority of the civilized world has moved on to a point where violence isn't even considered. In the US, the worst thing that can happen to a politician is that some pundit calls him stupid on TV, or some cameraman catches him taking a shit. Being assasinated by an opposition party isn't even within the realm of thought. Those who still live by the baser human instincts of killing one's enemies should be "replaced", just as modern humans replaced their primitive ancestors.

Re:Could this be left-wing extremists?

[nanojath]

You're wrong. Your minimal flight experience doesn't stack up to the 30+ year veteran commercial pilots who are saying the hijacker pilots had to be highly trained. And although they were not small targets they were hit with amazing precision and resolve. No ordinary flake was responsible for this.

Non-experts like you talking out of their asses are just further confusing this issue. Note I'm not claiming to be any kid of expert - I'm just quoting the people who have some kind of relevant experience. Go to f-in CNN if you wan the details.

I wish to hell all you armchair commandos would stop blowing smoke about how easy this was. This was a very sophisticated military action and the sooner we abandon the isolated terrorist cell theory as the most viable option and start looking at the military reality (hint - only one nation has basically condemned the US and fully supported the action. Ends with a Q? anyone? Anyone?)