Before September 11th 2001, even the most brutal terrorist attacks had death tolls limited to the dozens, or in the case of airline bombings, the hundreds. For three thousand people to die in one day seemed inconceivable, but for the fact that we had watched so much of it live on television. While death tolls fluctuated in the chaos and through years of recovering body parts from the rubble, it is now accepted 2,977 men, women and children were killed by Islamist terrorists on four hijacked planes, at the World Trade Centre buildings and at the Pentagon. The fourth plane, United Airlines 93 crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to regain control from Al-Qaeda hijackers. Their bravery averted a further atrocity, as Al-Qaeda’s likely target was Washington DC.
It is often overlooked that 67 of those murdered on 9/11 were from the United Kingdom, more than killed in any single attack in the Northern Ireland conflict, or even the 7/7 London bombings. In April the King and Queen visited the United States and in his address to Congress King Charles stated:
“This atrocity was a defining moment for America and your pain and shock were felt around the whole world. During my visit to New York, my wife and I will again pay our respects to the victims, the families, and the bravery shown in the face of terrible loss. We stood with you then. And we stand with you now in solemn remembrance of a day that shall never be forgotten.”
That remains the case today.
What though, was the impact of 9/11?
Few assessments of the United Kingdom’s security and community relations in 2026, can fail to acknowledge the problems it brought into focus. Twenty-five years on, while Bin Laden is dead and Al-Qaeda largely vanquished, Islamist terrorism remains our primary terror threat. The pain felt in New York, has been ours following terror attacks on multiple occasions in London and Manchester, plus Reading, Southend and Hartlepool.
This is not to state that Jihadist violence began on 9/11 – 2001 was not even the first time Islamists had attacked the World Trade Centre. In the 1990s a steady flow of British jihadists travelled to conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir and Afghanistan, and more were to follow. With hindsight, the roads which were to lead to 9/11 were all signposted years earlier.
Following Al-Qaeda’s strike, the war on terror was soon to follow. NATO evoked Article 5 for the first time in its history, and it was self-evident that the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which had allowed Bin Laden refuge and his fighters to train, drill and prepare its actions would need to be taken down. A war on terror, with mixed results, was to follow.
Other consequences were perhaps less expected. 9/11 helped fashion conspiracy theory and prejudice into different shapes. A 9/11 ‘truth’ movement emerged which argued that either the Americans did the attacks themselves, or that they allowed 9/11 to happen to pursue a more aggressive foreign policy. The old wine of anti-semitism was poured into new bottles with claims that all Jews working in the World Trade Centre had been advised to stay off work that day, or that Israel was behind the attacks, even though 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. A template emerged, assisted by the rise of the Internet and later social media, which has seen terrorist attacks in the west immediately greeted by a loud minority with the explanation that these are ‘false flag’ attacks, conducted by anyone other than Islamist terrorists. Such views put down roots in the Muslim world and to some extent Muslim communities in the West, disfiguring discourse.
The impact on community relations was dire. On the far-right, suspicion and hostility towards Muslims, something which had been evidenced by the earlier 2001 disturbances in towns such as Stoke and Burnley, became the central plank of many groups campaigning. It is hard to imagine the comparative electoral success of the British National Party in the 2000s, without either 9/11 or 7/7.
Today, the head of MI5, Sir Ken McCallum has warned that we still face the threat of Islamic extremism, but unlike 2001, there is a renewed threat of state backed aggression. McCallum’s analysis says little however, about another significant shift in the past 25 years – the rise of a political Islam which often eschews violence in the west (although not elsewhere) and seeks to change liberal democracies here from within. As Policy Exchange Director Dean Godson has argued in the Spectator this week, some of our European neighbours, with Sweden to the fore, have begun to realise that there is a real battle required to prevent their societies, at the behest of Islamist actors, becoming something they have never been before.
Why does the UK appear slower to recognise such uncomfortable developments? One factor may be the distinct way in which we responded to 9/11. While there was extremely limited support for Bin Laden’s stripe of Islam among British Muslims, new political formations developed as British Muslims were taken ever more seriously as a bloc by both politicians and sections of the state. Processes of community consultation and engagement accelerated that, even now, would be hard to envisage being offered to other communities. A discourse which saw counter-terrorism policies as ‘racist’ or ‘Islamophobic’ while rarely acknowledging that official responses were motivated by very real threats, took root – not just within campaign groups but also parts of the left and academia. That makes it very hard for some to see the wood, for the trees.
Twenty-five years on, as we pause to remember the victims of 9/11, it is regrettable that there is still a contest not just about how we respond to both violent and non-violent Islamism, but whether we respond at all.
But respond we must or our societies will become very different places indeed.
Dr Paul Stott is the Head of Security and Extremism at Policy Exchange