9/11: Part 1

This week on Historically High, we begin our two-part deep dive into September 11 by pulling back the curtain on everything that led to that fateful Tuesday morning. To understand how four commercial airliners were turned into guided missiles, you have to rewind decades. We start in the brutal, scorched valleys of the Soviet-Afghan War, tracking how the mujahideen resistance gave birth to both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. From there, we trace the rise of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the bloody trial runs that the world largely brushed off—from the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa to the suicide strike on the USS Cole—and the tactical evolution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s deadly "planes operation." We break down how al-Qaeda slipped hijackers into American flight schools right under the nose of U.S. intelligence, the bureaucratic blind spots that let them train in plain sight, and the chilling final logistics locked in place on September 10, 2001. Light up, settle in, and join us as we connect the geopolitical fuse that was lit years before the towers fell. Thanks for listening and don't forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating, and write a review! You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh for bonus content and exclusive perks. Follow us on social media: @Historicallyhi on X/Twitter and @historicallyhighpod on Instagram. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.