Terrorists struck the United States Tuesday morning in attacks that included at least three commercial jet crashes into significant buildings.
• In the first attack, American Airlines Flight 11 hijacked from Boston, Masschusetts, slams into the World Trade Center's north tower in Manhattan, followed by A second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, crashing into the World Trade Center's south tower. Both towers later collapse. New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Wednesday indicated the final death toll in the World Trade Center attacks could amount to a few thousand in each of the two towers, the missing include about 300 firefighters, 40 police officers and 30 port authority officers who rushed to the towers of the Trade Center shortly before they collapsed.
• About an hour later,American Airlines Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon, part of which later collapses. Officials said they expected the number of fatalities to be somewhere between 100 and 200.
•Passengers on board the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in rural Pennsylvania Tuesday apparently decided to attack the terrorists who had commandeered the plane, according to family members of one passenger.
• FBI sources said all four planes that crashed had been hijacked. Everyone aboard the four commercial airliners that were hijacked Tuesday died, a total of 266 people, according to American and United airlines.
•In an unprecedented act, NATO has met and invoked a Cold War-era treaty clause,Article 5 (of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization charter) that says, essentially, that when one member is attacked, then all members are attacked. That's NATO saying, in essence, that should the United States decide that it needs to take a military response, NATO will stand foursquare behind the United States and help it militarily or politically.
