This year marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the United States that left nearly 3,000 people dead. The Al-Qaeda plane hijackings of September 11, 2001, were the first foreign attack on the US mainland in nearly two centuries. It ruptured America's sense of safety and plunged the West into war in Afghanistan. In the lead-up to the anniversary, AFP spoke with survivors and those closest to the victims, piecing together the timeline of that fateful morning that would reshape the course of US history.