United in vigilance, law enforcement officers have been on ‘a no-fail mission’ for 25 years
By Mark Morales, Alexandra Skores, CNN
(CNN) — Twenty-five years later, John Ryan can still name all 37 Port Authority Police officers who died on September 11.
Christopher Amoroso. Antonio Rodrigues. J.D. Levi. Stephen Huczko. He ticks off their names and their special attributes.
Sgt. Robert Kaulfers stands out because he was one of Ryan’s closest friends on the job, the proverbial life of the party who would make up song lyrics on the spot and used his talents to make fun of colleagues. Ryan will always remember the laughs, but he remains haunted by the last time he heard his friend’s voice.
“You hear him calling on the radio, ‘West Street’s coming down, West Street’s coming down,’ and then nothing,” said Ryan, a former Chief of Department with the Port Authority Police Department. “You know by his description that he was in the lobby, in the South Tower, looking out, and could see the steel and other things dropping, and then ultimately, was killed in the collapse.”
Port Authority police lost more officers in the line of duty that one day than any other law enforcement agency has in a single day in US history.
Like so many in law enforcement, Ryan made the soon-to-be war on terror a personal mission to make sure days like this never happen again. He ultimately went on to become one of the commanders of the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), a multi-agency team led by the FBI that emerged as the linchpin in the fight against terrorism post-9/11.
“Being part of the JTTF for me was the most significant way in which I could provide my experience and knowledge to help to prevent another event from occurring,” Ryan said. “When your community gets destroyed, and you lose so many members of your community, in my view you have to take it personal.”
On the 25th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on US soil, law enforcement officials – especially in New York – manage a massive counterterrorism infrastructure made up of almost every local, state, and federal law enforcement agency. They all work together, keeping one of the core lessons learned from 9/11 as a main directive: sharing intelligence and resources so they can stop a threat as soon as possible.
Intelligence sharing has been one of the keys to a robust counterterrorism playbook, born out of the ashes of Ground Zero, that has so far prevented a similar large-scale attack. While no other terror attack in the US has mirrored 9/11 in terms of sheer devastation, brutality and loss of life, there have been other high-profile attacks and attempts in the years since, with many plots snuffed out before they even came to fruition.
Questions remain about security in America, with law enforcement officials often referring to a dynamic and fast-moving threat picture, meaning there is no one singular threat barreling down. Resources and partnerships have been dedicated to stopping threats that have materialized in part from the war with Iran, increased antisemitism since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, lone wolves, radicalization of international and homegrown violent extremists and more.
Meanwhile, the response to the 9/11 attacks has caused profound changes in security protocols at airports, new federal laws aimed at harsher penalties for terrorists and the constant recalibration of procedures that reflect modern-day attacks, like vehicle rammings and drone use.
Even with all these measures, the threat level will never be zero.
“We are on a no-fail mission,” said Andrew Pachtman, special agent in charge of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York. “The bar of success is to prevent and to disrupt. We understand that it’s impossible to get ahead of every plot before steps can be taken that can prevent threats and risks to the American people, but our job is to do that. Every day our job is to make sure nothing goes boom in New York City.”
The JTTF adapts and evolves
As the US intelligence apparatus failed to prevent the towers from falling on September 11, 2001, the FBI began taking “a hard look at itself,” former FBI Director Christopher Wray once remarked in a 2019 commencement speech.
After the attack, the agency, helmed then by Robert Mueller, would begin to shift significant resources, agents and large amounts of focus to counterterrorism intelligence, investigations and cases.
The JTTF, starting out as just a partnership between the FBI and the NYPD years before 9/11, soon expanded to major cities after September 11. By 2002, a national JTTF was established – along with the Department of Homeland Security – both of which were major changes to law enforcement in response to the attacks.
Now, the JTTF is in every FBI field office around the country, a far cry from the pre-9/11 days when FBI agents and local police would be on the brink of a fistfight over who was in charge, Ryan said.
“It wasn’t as refined as it is today, where you had representation from all different agencies,” Ryan said about the evolution of the JTTF in New York. “Back then, there was just a few agencies. Now today, you have over 60 different agencies there that participate.”
The shield of every law enforcement agency is on the wall of the JTTF headquarters in Lower Manhattan. Among those shields is a whole tire from the landing gear from one of the planes that struck one of the towers and a portion of a steel beam, fashioned into a cross – both serving as a stark reminder of the attacks.
“Information was proprietary within the intelligence community to the agencies that collected it,” Pachtman said of the days before the terror attacks. “They were not as open or willing or able to share it based on the rules that existed at the time.”
Representatives of each agency work under the same roof now – investigators, analysts and terror experts, all trained to identify potential terrorists and any plots they may have in the planning stages. They hunt for co-conspirators and follow money trails with the intention of sharing leads and building potential cases together. As of October 2024, there were around 4,000 members, including FBI task force officers from more than 500 state and local agencies and 50 federal agencies.
Airport security became focal point
While members of the JTTF were providing boots on the ground – even having a presence in many countries overseas – the 9/11 attacks revealed a big vulnerability which ultimately led to major changes for air travelers.
Airport security got considerably stricter, which had a massive ripple effect for millions who fly each year, with changes happening just minutes before the first tower collapsed.
At 9:42 a.m. on September 11, five minutes after the attack on the Pentagon, the Federal Aviation Administration took the unprecedented step of ordering all aircraft nationwide to land immediately.
Two days after the attacks, US airports reopened and commercial flights began to resume but there were stricter security policies and checks, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Among the new rules, only passengers with tickets to fly that day would be allowed past the security checkpoints. Knives and other sharp items also were banned from carry-on bags. Before 9/11, the FAA permitted knives with up to 4-inch long blades on board commercial aircraft.
On November 19, 2001, President George W. Bush signed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act into law, creating the Transportation Security Administration. Before September 11, airport security had been managed by the individual airlines.
Passenger and baggage screening at airports would now be conducted by the federal government, and all carry on and checked bags would be examined. The government also expanded the Federal Air Marshal Service and required airlines to reinforce cockpit doors.
The TSA first started screening passengers at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in April 2002. At the end of the year, the agency would meet a key mandate, deploying explosives detection systems nationwide.
The first attempt at a large-scale terror attack came just over three months after September 11.
On December 22, 2001, just a month after the TSA was organized, British al-Qaeda operative Richard Reid, known as “the shoe bomber,” tried to use matches to ignite explosives in his shoes on a flight from Paris to Miami. According to the FBI, crew members and passengers noticed Reid struggling to light the fuse and restrained him. He pleaded guilty to eight terrorism-related charges, and a judge sentenced him to life in federal prison.
A requirement for passengers to take their shoes off at TSA security checkpoints so they could be screened for explosives came nearly five years later due to “intelligence pointing to a continuing threat,” according to TSA.
The rule was eliminated in 2025.
A plot to simultaneously bomb as many as 10 airliners over the Atlantic using liquid or gel explosives was foiled by intelligence and law enforcement in 2006. The al Qaeda members planned to bring the explosives onboard in common items like toothpaste tubes or shampoo bottles and detonators hidden in MP3 players or phones. Ten men were eventually convicted in British courts.
As a result of the failed plot, TSA implemented restrictions on liquids in carry-on luggage. Each passenger was limited to bottles of 3.4 ounces or less contained in a single, clear, resealable 1-quart sized plastic bag.
In December 2008, as Northwest Airlines Flight 253 was descending into Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, also known as “the underwear bomber,” detonated a bomb hidden in his underwear. The explosives started a fire, but did not fully explode, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Passengers and flight attendants tackled him and extinguished the fire as the plane made an emergency landing. Abdulmutallab pleaded guilty to all eight counts of a federal indictment and was sentenced to life in prison.
In 2010, TSA would begin using full body scanners. The machines were designed to detect non-metallic weapons, explosives and other threats concealed under layers of clothing that might evade traditional metal detectors.
TSA Precheck would officially launch in December 2013, identifying “low risk” passengers for quicker streamlined screenings. Today, over 20 million people are active pre-check members, according to TSA.
A plot, a near-miss, another attack
Investigators had their share of terror threats to tackle both underground and on the ground after the underwear bomber episode.
On the 9/11 anniversary in 2009, investigators uncovered an al Qaeda plot to attack the New York City subway system with homemade bombs at two of its busiest stations. Najibullah Zazi was one of several men arrested in connection with the plot. Zazi was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison, with prosecutors making note of his extraordinary cooperation, saying the intelligence he gave helped in a number of investigations.
In 2010, authorities arrested Faisal Shahzad after he tried to detonate a car bomb in Times Square. Shahzad said he was trained by the Pakistani Taliban on how to make bombs. Despite the training, the bomb failed to go off. He was ultimately sentenced to life in prison.
Sayfullo Saipov was sentenced to life in prison after he rammed his rented U-Haul truck into pedestrians and cyclists along the West Side Highway in 2017. Saipov, inspired by ISIS, ditched his truck after he crashed into a school bus and brandished a pellet gun before he was shot by an NYPD officer and taken into custody. Eight people were killed and a dozen were injured in what was the deadliest terror attack in New York City since 9/11.
The evolution of terrorism
Law enforcement spends much of its focus on plots that happened and attacks that became near misses through hapless bad actors.
Just last month, a 35-year-old woman who pledged allegiance to ISIS and wanted to blow up the New York State Capitol building in Albany and also attack senators was arrested, authorities announced at a news conference in August.
Such alleged plots tell the story of the evolution of terrorism affecting American cities, from major conspiracies with deep planning and coordination whose nexus begins with terrorist organizations abroad to solo actors radicalized online whose target is any kind of mayhem, not just large-scale devastation. And all this comes in addition to cybersecurity threats, foreign interference, ransomwear attacks and more.
“The threat is evolving. There are actors who are inspired by different elements of domestic terrorism ideology, international terrorism ideology, a confluence of both,” Pachtman said. “They have an advantage of not having to follow any laws and rules that we have to follow and they have the advantage of the available technology and the ability to hide themselves online to anonymize themselves, for us to not immediately know who they are or where they are and to inflict harm.”
NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner said the threat picture is much different than it was 25 years ago, meaning that law enforcement must be just as nimble to combat threats in many different spaces all at once.
“Now we’re not primarily dealing with al Qaeda or even al Qaeda/ISIS but a proliferation of threats coming from conspiracy theories, grievances, nihilistic violence, far left, far right, anti-government, all of those things,” Weiner said at a news conference on Wednesday. “It’s a much more individualized and idiosyncratic threat, which means that we have to be on our toes.”
Weeks after the towers collapsed, Congress passed the Patriot Act, a sweeping set of laws that gave law enforcement and intelligence agencies the go ahead to conduct more surveillance with stronger investigative powers, all in the name of fighting terrorism. It also removed some legal restrictions and increased penalties for those charged in connection with a terror plot. Critics argued the Patriot Act cleared the path for spying and violations of civil liberties, prompting reforms to the controversial law years later.
Still, Pachtman said, partnering with federal prosecutors has made all the difference in bringing alleged terrorists to justice, with the partnership evolving just as the threat has evolved.
“With many of our terrorism investigations, when we can charge a subject with a crime of terrorism, we will,” Pachtman said. “Oftentimes our terrorism subjects often commit other federal criminal violations and so we’ve been very agile and very adaptable and nimble to say, ‘Hey, we have a terrorism investigation with a subject who’s also committing other federal offenses. Let’s charge him with those federal offenses to disrupt his activity or her activity or the plot,’ and we’ve been very successful.”
While many have been brought to justice since 9/11, the mastermind of the alleged plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, along with his three alleged accomplices, finally have a trial date of June 2028, according to a ruling from a US military judge. So far, only one terrorist has been convicted in connection with the 9/11 attacks, Zacarias Moussaoui, who’s currently serving a life sentence.
Pachtman, who was with the DEA in New Jersey working narcotics cases when the terror attacks happened, said he helped dig up evidence that was used to convict Moussaoui. Pachtman remembers driving on the New Jersey Turnpike and seeing one of the towers struck while the other had not yet been hit.
Despite all the resources dedicated to combat terror, the question regarding the likelihood of another 9/11 style attack, just like Pachtman vividly remembers 25 years ago, remains.
“It’s hard to answer that question,” Pachtman said. “There may be people who seek to commit such an attack, but it’s our job to stop it. We have every resource and element in place across the board, interagency cooperation to stop that, and it’s our job not to let that happen and we will not let that happen under our watch.”
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CNN’s Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.
