9/11 at 25: The Lesson the World Has Still Not Learnt
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Twenty-five years ago, the world watched in disbelief as two passenger aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. A third struck the Pentagon. A fourth, after passengers fought back against the hijackers, crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died that morning. But the death toll alone cannot explain the significance of September 11, 2001. 9/11 was an assault on the very idea that an open, prosperous and confident society could remain insulated from an ideology prepared to justify mass murder in the name of religion - Islam.
Islamist terrorism remains the principal transnational terrorist threat confronting the world. Its organisations have been weakened, its leaders eliminated and its territorial strongholds destroyed. But the ideology has proved remarkably resilient. It has survived military defeats, adapted to new circumstances and spread through decentralised networks, affiliates and digital propaganda.
The latest Global Terrorism Index records a fall in overall terrorism deaths in 2025. That is welcome news, but it does not mean that the underlying threat has disappeared. Islamic State and its affiliates remained the world's deadliest terrorist organisation. Al-Qaeda, despite losing the organisational dominance it possessed in 2001, has survived and adapted through affiliates across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. The threat has therefore not disappeared. It has changed its geography, organisation and methods. That is perhaps the most important lesson of 9/11.
The world initially approached terrorism largely as a military and intelligence problem - identify the organisation, destroy its camps, eliminate its leadership and disrupt its finances. All these measures are necessary. But they cannot by themselves defeat an ideology. Organisations can be dismantled; ideas can migrate. A destroyed headquarters can be replaced by a network. A dead leader can be succeeded by a decentralised movement. A territorial caliphate can disappear while its ideological appeal survives online and among individuals radicalised far from any traditional battlefield.
The geography of the threat tells its own story. The Sahel has emerged as the global epicentre of terrorist violence. Pakistan has become one of the countries most severely affected by terrorism. Islamic State continues to operate through affiliates in different parts of the world, while al-Qaeda-linked organisations remain active in Africa and South Asia. This is the uncomfortable reality that the 25th anniversary of 9/11 should force the world to confront.
The battle against Islamist terrorism has produced major successes. The killing of bin Laden, the destruction of Islamic State's territorial caliphate and the disruption of numerous terrorist networks demonstrate what determined international action can achieve. But military victory against an organisation is not synonymous with ideological defeat. And ideological defeat is precisely what remains unfinished.
There must also be no hesitation in naming the ideology responsible for some of the world's most persistent terrorist violence. Islamist terrorism has to be confronted without ambiguity. The world cannot defeat a threat that it is afraid to identify.
There is another striking feature of this year's commemoration. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is participating in the Ground Zero ceremony. His presence should not be romanticised or turned into a political endorsement. Its significance lies elsewhere: twenty-five years after America was attacked by terrorists claiming an Islamist justification, American Muslims have become part of every level of the country's civic and political life. What does this indicate?
The world must remember what actually happened on September 11. Innocent civilians were not killed because of an American military operation or a battlefield confrontation. They were deliberately murdered because an extremist ideology considered such mass killing legitimate. That is why 9/11 cannot be reduced to a story about America's foreign policy after 2001. Whatever criticisms may be made of the subsequent wars, policies or mistakes, they cannot erase the nature of the original crime.
Twenty-five years later, perhaps the greatest danger is not that the world has forgotten the horror of 9/11. It is that it remembers the images but forgets the warning. The warning was brutally simple: an ideology that justifies the murder of innocents in pursuit of political or religious objectives cannot be appeased into disappearance. It has to be confronted politically, intellectually, technologically and, when necessary, by force of law and arms.
Democratic societies must simultaneously preserve the very freedoms that terrorism seeks to destroy - human dignity, freedom of belief and the rule of law. That is the real lesson of 9/11. The objective cannot merely be to prevent another September 11. It must be to ensure that the ideology that made September 11 possible never again acquires the power to define the future of the world. Twenty-five years later, the battle is not over.
The world changed dramatically after that morning. Airport security was transformed. Intelligence agencies were reorganised. International counter-terrorism cooperation expanded. The United States created the Department of Homeland Security. Afghanistan became the first major battlefield of the post-9/11 era, followed by Iraq. Osama bin Laden was eventually killed. The territorial caliphate of Islamic State was destroyed. Bet the most uncomfortable question on the 25th anniversary remains - has the world actually defeated the ideology that produced 9/11? The answer is no.
The latest Global Terrorism Index records a fall in overall terrorism deaths in 2025. That is welcome news, but it does not mean that the underlying threat has disappeared. Islamic State and its affiliates remained the world's deadliest terrorist organisation. Al-Qaeda, despite losing the organisational dominance it possessed in 2001, has survived and adapted through affiliates across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. The threat has therefore not disappeared. It has changed its geography, organisation and methods. That is perhaps the most important lesson of 9/11.
The world initially approached terrorism largely as a military and intelligence problem - identify the organisation, destroy its camps, eliminate its leadership and disrupt its finances. All these measures are necessary. But they cannot by themselves defeat an ideology. Organisations can be dismantled; ideas can migrate. A destroyed headquarters can be replaced by a network. A dead leader can be succeeded by a decentralised movement. A territorial caliphate can disappear while its ideological appeal survives online and among individuals radicalised far from any traditional battlefield.
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The battle against Islamist terrorism has produced major successes. The killing of bin Laden, the destruction of Islamic State's territorial caliphate and the disruption of numerous terrorist networks demonstrate what determined international action can achieve. But military victory against an organisation is not synonymous with ideological defeat. And ideological defeat is precisely what remains unfinished.
There must also be no hesitation in naming the ideology responsible for some of the world's most persistent terrorist violence. Islamist terrorism has to be confronted without ambiguity. The world cannot defeat a threat that it is afraid to identify.
A few Muslims away from the terrorist ideology can never become an excuse for intellectual evasion. Protecting Muslims from collective blame and confronting Islamist extremism are not contradictory propositions. They are complementary necessities of a democratic response.
The 25th anniversary also brings home the human cost of 9/11 in a way that statistics cannot capture. The dead are no longer the only victims. Thousands of firefighters, police officers, rescue workers and others who worked at Ground Zero have suffered illnesses associated with exposure to toxic dust. The World Trade Center Health Program now has more than 150,000 participants, and the human consequences of that morning continue to unfold a quarter of a century later. Thus, September 11 is not merely a date in an American calendar. It remains a living wound.
There is another striking feature of this year's commemoration. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is participating in the Ground Zero ceremony. His presence should not be romanticised or turned into a political endorsement. Its significance lies elsewhere: twenty-five years after America was attacked by terrorists claiming an Islamist justification, American Muslims have become part of every level of the country's civic and political life. What does this indicate?
The world must remember what actually happened on September 11. Innocent civilians were not killed because of an American military operation or a battlefield confrontation. They were deliberately murdered because an extremist ideology considered such mass killing legitimate. That is why 9/11 cannot be reduced to a story about America's foreign policy after 2001. Whatever criticisms may be made of the subsequent wars, policies or mistakes, they cannot erase the nature of the original crime.
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Democratic societies must simultaneously preserve the very freedoms that terrorism seeks to destroy - human dignity, freedom of belief and the rule of law. That is the real lesson of 9/11. The objective cannot merely be to prevent another September 11. It must be to ensure that the ideology that made September 11 possible never again acquires the power to define the future of the world. Twenty-five years later, the battle is not over.