9/11, Experts See Threat of Another Attack

Twenty years after 9/11, there is still a "threat" that the most radicalized sectors of Islam in different countries may carry out terrorist attacks such as the one on the Twin Towers in New York, said former Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda Gutman. In an interview with journalist Ana María Salazar for EL FINANCIERO Bloomberg, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs during the six-year term of Vicente Fox, when 9/11 happened, said that this type of terrorist attacks represent "a real danger" for many societies. "I don't know how to combat that danger, how to eliminate it. The withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan is a correct decision, I believe, by President Biden; however, it may lead to the new reconstitution of Afghanistan as a sanctuary for all these radical groups, as it was for Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden at the end of the 1990s," he warned. He pointed out that, since then, there have been a large number of terrorist attacks, for example in France, England, Indonesia or Australia, among others, but none, so far, has had the magnitude or generated the tragedy of 9/11. then U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, Jeffrey Davidow, recalled, for his part, that Mexico's reaction to the attack of September 11, 2001 was frankly very "confused", because the government of President Fox, although it wanted to collaborate with Washington against terrorism, had an inability to give voice to its condolences.

"While the world was concerned about terrorism, the Mexican government was concerned about not appearing to be a lackey of the gringos. So there was a feeling of disappointment in Washington about the Mexican reaction," he said. In response, the then Secretary of the Interior, Santiago Creel, said that the governments of the United States and Mexico collaborated at that time as true allies in the defense of borders, territories, people and interests of Washington in Mexican territory. However, he added, the issue that generated "enormous tension" between both governments was that Mexico, being a pacifist country, did not support an invasion and war against Iraq, fewwhich was endorsed by the United Nations, because there was no evidence or proof of the existence of weapons of mass destruction. According to the then head of domestic policy, if 9/11 -an event that changed Washington's foreign policy agenda- had not happened, Mexico would have been able to agree with the then President of the United States, George W. Bush, on a very ambitious immigration reform proposed by former Foreign Minister Castañeda. Those were the key moments of the attack on the Twin Towers, which had an impact not only in the United States but throughout the world. The cleanup at Ground Zero involved the removal of 1.8 million tons of debris at a cost of $750 million dollars. 10 years after the attacks, on May 2, 2011 Osama Bin Laden was killed in a raid by U.S. Navy Seals in Pakistan.