Watch the next episode here: What exactly happened on 9/11?

What drove Osama bin Laden to target the United States? Who were the 19 hijackers, and how did they prepare for the attack? Could the plot have been stopped before 11 September 2001?

In Part One of this definitive deep dive into 9/11, David McCloskey and Gordon Corera trace the story from the rise of bin Laden and al-Qaeda to the recruitment, radicalisation and training of the men who would carry out the deadliest terrorist attack in American history.

Across three and a half hours, they examine the motives behind the plot, the warning signs missed by intelligence agencies and the final preparations for an attack that would change the world forever.

0:00 How 9/11 Was Allowed to Happen
2:17 HP
3:26 The Origins of Bin Laden and al-Qaeda
16:26 Why Bin Laden Turned Against America
25:32 Alec Station: The CIA Hunts Bin Laden
34:07 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: Architect of 9/11
44:00 KSM Pitches the Original 10-Plane Plot
53:02 Bin Laden Approves the “Planes Operation”
1:00:00 Mohammed Atta and the Hamburg Cell
1:10:01 The Hamburg Cell Is Recruited for 9/11
1:21:35 The Kuala Lumpur Summit and a Crucial Missed Warning
1:48:39 Recruiting the 15 “Muscle” Hijackers
2:11:03 Training the Hijackers to Seize Airliners
2:27:43 How the 9/11 Plot Was Funded
2:33:30 Saudi Connections and Omar al-Bayoumi
2:46:05 Atta Begins the Final Preparations
3:01:29 US Intelligence: “The System Was Blinking Red”
3:10:59 Choosing September 11 and Assembling the Teams
3:20:58 The Hijackers’ Final Night
3:30:33 Next Time: September 11, 2001

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