WI: 9/11 Al Kaida goes only after military targets ?

Loghain

Banned
Okay lets suppose that at 9/11 Alkaid goes only after military and cultural targets such as Pentagon.

Scenario 1: Planes Crash into Pentagon Mount Rushmore etc.

Scenario 2: Same as Above but Alkaida Actually Allows All passangers except Pilots to jump out of the plane with parachutes, all while pretending that passangers are still on plane.

Essentially im looking to have 9/11 like scenario that is not a Rallying cry for war against terrorism
 
Okay lets suppose that at 9/11 Alkaid goes only after military and cultural targets such as Pentagon.

Scenario 1: Planes Crash into Pentagon Mount Rushmore etc.

Scenario 2: Same as Above but Alkaida Actually Allows All passangers except Pilots to jump out of the plane with parachutes, all while pretending that passangers are still on plane.

Essentially im looking to have 9/11 like scenario that is not a Rallying cry for war against terrorism
In any case you are still killing around 3-400 civilians, plus casualties from the ground, Mt. Rushmore would never be a target, off the routes of most flights, something closer to the Northeast would be chosen, maybe CIA HQ in Langley, the CVN docks at Newport News, Sub base at Groton, that sort of thing. Still be a lot of outrage for the dead passengers, results probably the same

There aren't enough parachutes on the planes, hell I'm not sure there are any at all, and they can't have that many get onto a plane easily if it all
 

James G

Gone Fishin'
Commercial passenger jets don't come complete with parachutes for passengers. There is no method of having them 'depart' from the jets nor anyone trained to show them how to exit safely. Any jumping passengers would be in danger to themselves and others when reaching the ground.
Al Kaida. Al Kadia. Al Kiada.

Where do you get this stuff from?
 
Once you're at a scale like crashing planes into the Pentagon, you're kind of going to have to involve civilians by the very nature of it.

Besides, if you were really concerned about passengers on an aircraft you hijacked (very friendly terrorists!), wouldn't you just hijack a freight aircraft instead? A lot less parachutes to need to carry aboard.

Plus it just isn't in al-Qaeda's nature, nor any other Islamist terrorist group. The terrorist groups which liked to minimise collateral damage have tended to be left-wing terrorist groups, i.e. the ones who call in their bombings ahead of time to make sure people don't die. Al-Qaeda and military targets, well, there's plenty of US bases in the Middle East after all, although bombing a base (flying a plane into one) on US soil is of course much more of an attack. But even so, planes flying into two iconic buildings and destroying them alongside thousands of lives is hard to beat.

The best option would be to attack a naval base where there's a Nimitz-class carrier. If they angle the plane right, then there's no time to intercept it, and they can take out an extremely expensive ship and hopefully as many other things on the ground as possible. The death toll will be at least a few hundred people outside of the crew of the aircraft.

In the end it makes no difference if they hijack a cargo plane or an airliner, the United States is still declaring a war on terror with al-Qaida at the top of the list.
 

Greenville

Banned
Reasonable military targets are the CIA headquarters, Pentagon, Andrews Air Force Base, the White House, FBI headquarters etc. There's not many large buildings which can be hit from planes like this to make a large death toll.
 
The best option would be to attack a naval base where there's a Nimitz-class carrier. If they angle the plane right, then there's no time to intercept it, and they can take out an extremely expensive ship and hopefully as many other things on the ground as possible. The death toll will be at least a few hundred people outside of the crew of the aircraft.
Could they pull it off twice? Or would it be a one off then anti air defense are on and other carriers will shoot down anything that comes close.

If they pull it off twice, and I assume one or two carriers are in maintenance can you delay the invasion of Afghanistan.
 
Reasonable military targets are the CIA headquarters, Pentagon, Andrews Air Force Base, the White House, FBI headquarters etc. There's not many large buildings which can be hit from planes like this to make a large death toll.

This is where you get the problem of trying to find those buildings from the air. I've flown into Washington DC a few times, and it's pretty hard to see the White House and Capitol Building from the air compared to the Pentagon. The FBI HQ and CIA HQ are even less distinctive. And what would you even hit at Andrews AFB? If you can find the place from the air (by relatively untrained pilots who have minimal to no experience flying around the DC area), they'd probably just crash into a relatively insignificant building there.

Could they pull it off twice? Or would it be a one off then anti air defense are on and other carriers will shoot down anything that comes close.

If they pull it off twice, and I assume one or two carriers are in maintenance can you delay the invasion of Afghanistan.

Maybe at two different naval bases (I'd assume there would be at least two Nimitz-class carriers in two separate places in the US) with the attacks timed within an hour of each other you might be able to take out two.

But if someone actually managed to ram a jetliner into a carrier (or anywhere near), they'd definitely be getting air defense everywhere. But maybe hijack a plane out of San Diego and attempt an attack on the carriers at Coronado, and at the same time, hijack one on the East Coast and attack Norfolk. One slight problem is if they have to delay the attack into late 2003, the idiots flying the plane might hit the USS Midway instead of an actual, active aircraft carrier.
 
So even the Slightest Attack will sent USA into rampage of bloody revenge that will involve death of many cilivians.

Damn. A brave new world eh.
 
I don't see how killings hundreds f US employees contractors and servicemen counts as a slight attack
They would claim it was an act of war and the contractors and servicemen are valid military targets (in times of war, that is). I don't think it would cause a different effect on American public opinion (Pearl Harbor was an attack on a military facility and that didn't stop the American population from being outraged) and the USA can still invoke NATO's article 5. But Al Qaida would be seen in a more ambivalent light by public opinion outside the USA. The argument would be that, if the USA can bomb the Arab world (Iraq) whenever the president is facing a political crisis, why can't the Arab world strike them back?

However, if they want to avoid public outrage (outside the USA), they'd need to use cargo planes - and they can't hijack them (how would they board them?) but actually apply to the job of flying them.
 
I dunno, the IRA usually tried to avoid or minimize civilian casualties in their attacks.
They only did warnings when they were just trying to disrupt rather than kill/injure anyone, if they wanted bodies they did not care who was in the firing line. Walking into a bar and opening fire which was their other trick did sort of give the game away. To be fair, the unionist groups were just as bad, but that is no excuse.
 
So even the Slightest Attack will sent USA into rampage of bloody revenge that will involve death of many cilivians.

Damn. A brave new world eh.

Remember al-Qaeda had been on the US's hate list since Ramzi Yousef bombed the WTC back in 1993, and al-Qaeda had a long history of terrorism. Osama bin Laden was a wanted man since he killed over 200 people at US embassies in East Africa. Al-Qaeda's USS Cole bombing had pissed a lot of people off. This is yet another escalation by al-Qaeda, and at some point the United States is going to want to do whatever it takes (even invading another country) to get his head.

Since Afghanistan wasn't ruled by very nice people and was actively helping al-Qaeda out, Afghanistan made an obvious target. Would Iraq be invaded TTL? Maybe not.

However, if they want to avoid public outrage (outside the USA), they'd need to use cargo planes - and they can't hijack them (how would they board them?) but actually apply to the job of flying them.

Is there really not a way to infiltrate a cargo plane and hijack it? I know it sounds like something from a movie, but certainly a UPS/Fedex/whatever flight isn't immune to one or two guys hijacking it.

Although it wouldn't be impossible, I suppose, for the hijackers who flew the planes to apply for a pilot job at a cargo airliner, even though it's been noted that the pilot hijackers were pretty poor pilots. I don't know what sort of background checks a prospective pilot would've been subject to in the pre-9/11 era, although since there was plenty of chances for the hijackers links to Islamist radical cells to have been exposed in OTL, I guess we can assume someone drops the ball at some point and this version of the 9/11 hijackers get yet more luck.
 
Top