Twenty-five years ago today, the world watched an event unfold that would change international history.

On the morning of 11 September 2001, hijacked passenger aircraft were deliberately flown into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center in New York.

Within hours, both towers had collapsed.

Nearly 3,000 people were dead.

The consequences would reach far beyond Manhattan.

Today, on the 25th anniversary of the attacks, we are announcing the release of Before the Towers Fell: The Warnings, Intelligence Failures, and Missed Opportunities Before 9/11, a new Bill Stewart investigation into the scattered warnings, institutional failures and missed connections that preceded 11 September 2001.

Going Back to the Evidence

Much of what happened on 11 September is familiar. Less familiar is the long trail of warnings, intelligence fragments and missed opportunities that preceded the attacks.

Before the Towers Fell returns to the documented record, tracing events from the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 through the rise of al-Qaeda, the Kuala Lumpur meeting, the Hamburg cell, flight training, visa and watchlist failures, the Phoenix memorandum and the detention of Zacarias Moussaoui.

The book examines what the CIA, FBI and other agencies knew, how information moved—or failed to move—between them, and why scattered pieces were not recognised as parts of the same threat. It does not claim that the United States possessed a complete blueprint of the coming attack. It asks whether different decisions might nevertheless have changed history.

THE WARNINGS BEFORE THE 9/11 ATTACK

Before the first aircraft struck the North Tower, known al-Qaeda associates had entered the United States. Future hijackers had attended flight schools. An FBI agent in Phoenix had warned about extremists seeking aviation training, while Zacarias Moussaoui had already attracted suspicion at a Minnesota flight school.

Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi had appeared on the intelligence radar, yet the information needed to locate them did not reach the right people in time. On 6 August 2001, President George W. Bush received a briefing titled Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.

None of these fragments provided a complete operational plan. Together, however, they reveal a system struggling to share information, recognise patterns and imagine how an attack might unfold.

This is not a book about conspiracy. It is an investigation into failure—failure of information sharing, coordination and recognition.

A Personal Memory

For author Bill Stewart, the book also carries a personal memory.

He had recently joined a vessel and was sitting in his day room with the television switched on when footage of the aircraft striking the towers appeared.

For several moments he believed he was watching a film trailer.

Then came the realisation that the pictures were live news.

Like millions of people around the world, he watched events that seemed almost impossible unfold in real time.

That memory has remained with him for twenty-five years.

Remembering the People

Above everything else, the story of the Twin Towers is a human one.

Office workers.

Visitors.

Aircraft passengers and crews.

Firefighters.

Police officers.

Paramedics.

Families.

People who left home on an ordinary September morning with no reason to believe that they would not return.

This new investigation seeks to place those people at the centre of the story while examining the evidence surrounding one of the defining events of the twenty-first century.

Before the Towers Fell: The Warnings, Intelligence Failures, and Missed Opportunities Before 9/11 is available now on Amazon Kindle.

Read the full Before the Towers Fell book description at Billy’s Book Club.