Did the date of 9/11 have significance, or was it chosen randomly?

Question

One thing I've been wondering about ever since 9/11 is whether the date was randomly chosen, or if it was chosen specifically for its resemblance to the American emergency hotline 9-1-1 (or something else)?

It seems like a fairly bizarre coincidence for such a devastating attack to take place on the one day of the year whose date roughly translates to "disaster," but then it also seems rather odd (and kind of comic-book-villain-y, frankly) to time an attack in such a themed way. Also, the rest of the world (as I understand it) would write the date 11-9-2001, which would seem to argue against the connection, except that it was targeted against one of the only nations who would write it 9-11-2001.

Have any Al-Qaida prisoners or documents revealed whether there was any thought put into the timing of the 9/11 attacks? Was the 9-1-1 connection purely coincidental? Were the attacks timed to coincide with something else, like an anniversary of something or a date with special meaning to Al-Qaida or bin Laden? Was there something about early September that made the attacks easier to pull off? Or was the date just chosen at random, without any larger significance at all?

I haven't seen any interviews, exposés, documents or anything else that would point one way or the other. Has anyone seen any definitive word on this?

Answer 1

There was no announcement by the terrorists after 9/11 using that name nor taking ownership for the events (check me on that). The name "9/11", and the significance of the date, was given by the US media after the fact, something the terrorists could not have likely predicted. It doesn't follow the pattern of any of the previous big attacks on the US. We don't refer to the USS Cole bombing as 10/12, Pearl Harbor as 12/7, nor Oklahoma City as 4/19. Following that pattern, 9/11 should have been referred to as "Twin Towers" or "WTC" or something after the location, not the date.

If 9/11 was chosen to have special meaning, it wasn't likely to be related to 911. As pointed out on Skeptics, the rest of the world writes the date as 11/9. Furthermore, in the Islamic Calendar, Sept 11, 2001 was Tuesday 23 Jumaada al-THaany 1422 A.H. or 6/23 (or 23/6).

Martin Gardner uses the example of finding "fiveness" in the Washington Monument to show you can find significance in any numbers (Numerology) if you look hard enough. Here's a list of what's special about the first 10,000 numbers (mostly mathematical). Similarly, you can find something interesting about every day of the calendar year. Throw in Bible and Qur'an references for good measure, feel free to pick from any book/chapter. Use 9:11 or 11:9 or 911 or 119 or 9.11 or 11.9.

In order to coordinate the attacks they had to pick a date. That was likely an operational consideration. Given how difficult it was to coordinate the attacks, and they wanted it to be even bigger, adding in the extra complication of an arbitrary deadline seems an amateurish complication. Then again, I've worked on some business projects which did just that.

Answer 2

Don't know if Al Qaeda was conscious of it or not, but 11 September 1683 was the all-time high water mark of the advance of Muslim armies into Christendom, when the Ottoman Turks stood outside the walls of Vienna. They were defeated and driven back the following day, 12 September 1683.

I also don't know if it is significant that 12 September is of course a date in the Western, Christian calendar. Muslims do use it for convenience for secular purposes. However, they have their own lunar month based calendar used to determine date of Ramadan etc., in which year 1 is the year Mohammed moved to Medina (where he established the first Muslim government).

Answer 3

Without suggesting there is any documented evidence of a connection, 9/11 was also the date of another recent aerial attack on the downtown of a major Western city, Pinochet's 1973 coup in Santiago, Chile.