Personal Reflection — September 11, Twenty‑Five Years Later
Imad Hamad is the Executive Director of the Dearborn, Michigan-based American Human Rights Council (AHRC). On the morning of September 11, 2001, Hamad was a passenger on a flight that departed Detroit at 8:30 a.m. heading toward Reagan National Airport, leaving him suspended in the air during the unfolding tragedy. His essay reflects on the immediate post-9/11 unity he experienced as an Arab-American civil rights advocate, contrasting it with the harsher societal and political divisions felt a quarter-century later.
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September 11 will never fade from my memory. I was 45 years old then—old enough to grasp the magnitude of what was happening, yet young enough to believe the country would learn from its pain and grow stronger. Twenty‑five years later, at age 65, the memories remain vivid, and the emotions still carry weight.
That morning, I was in the sky during the attacks. My flight departed Detroit at 8:30 a.m., heading toward Reagan National Airport—with the Pentagon, one of the targets, directly in its flight path. Suspended in the air, unaware of the full horror unfolding below, the confusion and fear inside the aircraft were overwhelming. That sense of helplessness, that shock, has stayed with me for a quarter of a century.
In the days that followed, life changed instantly for people of Muslim faith and Arab origin in America and across the globe. Suspicion, accusations, and collective blame became part of daily reality. “Guilt by association” and “guilty until proven innocent” were not abstract ideas — they were lived experiences. The terror attack was unprecedented, and so was the surge of anger and hate that followed. It shook the foundation of the values we believed defined this nation.
Yet even in that painful moment, something powerful emerged. Messages of support outnumbered messages of hate. Doors opened. Dialogue grew. Trust was built. Public safety became a shared responsibility, and communities worked together to prevent hate from turning into harm. A sense of unity emerged — a belief that, despite the horror, people stood together. “United We Stand” wasn’t just a slogan; it was a lived reality.
Today, at 65, that unity feels distant. The divisions are deeper. The tone is harsher. The acceptance of hate is more casual, more open, and more alarming. The resurgence of racism and hostility burns with a sharpness that feels fresh, not historical. It is painful to witness, especially after believing that the worst chapter of backlash and discrimination was behind us.
The contrast between being 45 then and 65 now is stark. At 45, I carried shock, fear, and uncertainty. At 65, I carry memory, perspective, and a heavy awareness of how fragile dignity and humanity can be when hate resurfaces. The renewed rise of hatred is not just a social trend — it is a personal reminder that the work of justice, respect, and human dignity is never finished.
STOCKHOLM, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Sweden's centre-left opposition looked most likely to take power on Monday after a tight election that reduced the far-right's influence but is unlikely to spell a return to open immigration policies.
Bucking a Europe-wide trend of shifts to the right, preliminary results from Sweden's election projected a narrow three-seat lead for the centre-left opposition over the right-wing ruling bloc of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
That was driven mainly by losses for the far-right Sweden Democrats party, which had helped steer the once-liberal nation towards some of Europe's strictest migration rules.
While a centre-left government may take a softer line, it is unlikely to return to the generous, open-door policies of past decades, analysts say, due to voters' unease over the levels of immigration and crime.
"I believe the broader shift towards a stricter Swedish migration policy is, for the most part, here to stay," said Niklas Bohlin, political scientist at the Mid-Sweden University.
Left-leaning parties backing Social Democrats leader Magdalena Andersson were projected to win 176 seats in the 349-seat parliament while Kristersson's bloc was seen winning 173 seats, the election authority said.
Sweden's centre-left opposition heads for slim majority
With votes still being counted, the centre-left opposition is on track to win 176 seats in Sweden's 349-member parliament, compared with 173 for the governing coalition and its Sweden Democrats allies.
Bar chart comparing Sweden's 2022 and 2026 election results. Centre-left parties are projected to win 176 seats versus 173 for the governing coalition and Sweden Democrats. Social Democrats remain largest at 28.1%.
Let me imagine that, at some future moment, I might be ushered into the presence of President Donald J. Trump and the question would then be: What in the world would I have to say to him? Keep in mind that this would be after he had renamed the former Lake America (once, of course, Lake Ontario) Lake Trump, the former Gulf of America (once, of course, the Gulf of Mexico) the Gulf of Trump, and the former Ocean America (once the Atlantic Ocean) Ocean Trump. (Okay, Ocean America hasn’t happened quite yet, but don’t for a moment think that it won’t, sooner or later.)
As a start, I would certainly want to say as politely as possible: “Just in case no one has told you yet, sir, you are a genuine self-aggrandizing maniac.”
And I have no doubt that he would smile back at me all too proudly.
UScommentator Tucker Carlson has claimed thatIsrael launched thewar on Iranto weaken Gulf states and get rid of US bases in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, "paving the way for Israeli hegemony".
The conservative political commentator and journalist made the comments in an interview with Going Underground, arguing that the conflict was driven in part by a broader Israeli ambition to reshape the regional balance of power.
Carlson said he had advised US President Donald Trump on what he called Israel's strategic objective before the war began.
“I said the point here is Israeli regional hegemony. That’s why they’re pushing for this war on Iran. They want to control their region,” Carlson said.
Israel, he said, wanted to expand its borders while sabotaging Iran and its regional allies, such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
“What does Israel want? Israel wants to expand its borders and it doesn’t want Iran getting in the way or its proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas,” Carlson said.
“It doesn’t want the GCC because they’re building these kind of amazing societies,” Carlson said.
“That’s a massive threat to Israel,” he added.
Weaken the Gulf
The broader goal of the war, Carlson said, was to weaken Iran as a regional power, diminish the influence of the Gulf states and eventually force the United States to withdraw from the Gulf.
“And this war, the point was to take Iran out as a regional power, take the, you know, scramble the eggs of the GCC, reduce their power and get the United States out of the Gulf,” he said.
“I told Trump this. I said, that’s the point. This is actually aimed at us.”
Carlson said he raised it with Trump in the Oval Office around 20 February, just as the war was starting.
“I told him that explicitly,” Carlson said, adding that the conversation took place after he had returned from the Gulf, where he had spent a lot of time over the past 25 years.
He also said Trump had personal close ties with leaders in the Gulf.
“Who doesn’t like the Gulf? Everyone who visits likes the Gulf. And Trump does,” Carlson said.
“Trump likes the GCC leaders, they’re incredible, they’re incredibly gracious people,” he added.
That, according to Carlson, made it hard for him to comprehend what happened next.
“Trump had no motive and no desire to hurt,” he said. “And yet he unleashed a sequence of events knowing that this could happen that badly damaged those countries. Why did he do that?”
Iran issues warning against Arab states aiding US, as UAE cuts economic ties
“That is the question that the American media studiously ignore,” said Carlson. “And I would love to know the answer. And I hope at some point historians find an answer.”
Carlson also questioned the conventional position that a sizable US military presence in the Gulf is inherently beneficial to Israeli interests.
“From an Israeli perspective, those are control mechanisms. Those are leashes that we use to constrain Israeli behaviour,” he said.
“And they don’t want to be constrained because they have a greater vision of their future,” he added.
Gulf pays for war
Carlson’s remarks come as the war has put increasing pressure on Gulf states and exposed the vulnerability of their infrastructure and US military bases.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies reported in March that Iran had fired thousands of missiles and drones at all six GCC states since the US-Israeli air campaign started.
The attacks were aimed at putting pressure on the Gulf states, spreading the costs of the war, and exposing the limits of Israeli capabilities, according to the report.
Iranian strikes have also inflicted heavy damage on US military facilities in the region.
At least 228 buildings or pieces of equipment at US military sites have been damaged or destroyed since the war started, according to a May report by The Washington Post based on satellite imagery.
After months of Iranian attacks that damaged American bases, the Post reported in August that the Pentagon was also evaluating whether the US should reduce its military presence in the Persian Gulf.
Saudi Arabia recently closed its East-West oil pipeline after drone attacks, which Riyadh blamed on militants based in Iraq, and Houthi attacks have increased the pressure on Saudi energy and security infrastructure.
Israel is holding 37 Palestinian journalists in its prisons, including 19 under administrative detention without charge or trial, the Palestinian Prisoner Society said Sunday.
The nongovernmental group said all 37 journalists were detained following the start of the Gaza genocide in October 2023.
It said Israel continues to target Palestinian journalists through arrests, prison sentences, solitary confinement and prosecution over their work and freedom of expression.
Among the latest detainees are journalists Muath Ammarna and Sabri Jibrin, who were arrested Thursday after Israeli forces raided their homes in Bethlehem in the southern West Bank.
The group said Ammarna has been repeatedly targeted by Israeli authorities and is now being detained for the third time over his journalistic work.
It also cited the case of journalist and writer Mahmoud Fatafta, who was sentenced to 48 months in prison over what Israel describes as “incitement,” one of the harshest sentences issued in such cases, according to the statement.
The society said Israeli authorities increasingly use “incitement” charges against journalists, alongside administrative detention based on what authorities describe as “secret files.”
Nineteen journalists from the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are currently held under administrative detention, accounting for 51% of all detained journalists, it added.
The group also highlighted the case of journalist Bushra al-Tawil, 33, who was transferred from Damon Prison in northern Israel to solitary confinement at Ramla Prison in central Israel.
It accused Israeli authorities of intensifying isolation and other restrictive measures against female Palestinian prisoners, alongside food deprivation, denial of medical treatment and poor sanitation conditions.
The society said detained journalists face the same conditions as other Palestinian prisoners, including hunger, medical neglect, torture, abuse, solitary confinement and denial of basic rights.
Journalists are also targeted through killings, enforced disappearances and direct attacks while carrying out their work, it added, describing this as part of a systematic policy aimed at restricting Palestinian reporting and documentation of Israeli crimes and violations.
The occupied West Bank has seen daily Israeli army raids and escalating attacks by occupiers since the start of the Gaza genocide in October 2023. The attacks have included killings, arrests, demolitions, attacks on homes, vehicles and mosques, destruction of agricultural land, restrictions on farmers, displacement of Palestinians and expansion of illegal settlements.
On Thursday, the Palestinian Prisoner Society said Israeli forces detained more than 100 Palestinians across the West Bank over the previous week, bringing the number of West Bank detainees since October 2023 to more than 25,000, in addition to thousands detained from Gaza.
Mansoor Adayfi was a student when the 'war on terror' turned him into a number. Twenty-five years later, he argues that the machinery behind his imprisonment has found new targets
Growing up as a child in Yemen, I never thought the day would come when I would share my story with a global audience.
But little did I know that I would be caught in the violent crosshairs of the "war on terror" launched in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Prior to September 11, 2001, there was nothing extraordinary about my life.
I grew up in a humble family, and only when I reached my teens did I begin to think about leaving my country.
When I was 18, I took the drastic step and left my village to finish school, armed with a dream of studying computer science abroad.
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For nearly a year, I asked the head of the institute where I studied and worked for a reference letter. He always told me, "Later."
After the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen, the head of the institute was asked to write a book about al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He sent a former student who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan to conduct research and asked me to accompany him.
"Come back from this trip," he promised, "and I will give you your letter."
We flew to Dubai, then Pakistan, and travelled overland to Afghanistan, eventually reaching Kabul, where an NGO was helping us with our research.
I was still there when the towers fell in New York City.
At the 9/11 museum, America remembers only its own
We only learned about the attacks three days later from a radio in a restaurant.
Soon after, while helping the NGO move supplies before fleeing the country, armed men stopped our car and abducted us.
We eventually ended up in the hands of a warlord who demanded $100,000 for our release. I didn't know then that American planes were dropping leaflets across Afghanistan offering bounties for suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
Two weeks later, the warlord's men came for me.
Hooded and handcuffed, I remember little of what followed except violence, a truck, a helicopter, a plane, and finally an underground room.
They hung me from the ceiling with a hood over my head. When they removed it, five rifles were pointed at me, red dots fixed on my chest.
"Hello, Mr Adel," a translator said, confusing me with an Egyptian general. "Do you know who we are, and why we are here?"
Of course, I had no idea.
Weeks earlier, I had been conducting research in Afghanistan and was expecting to begin university at the end of the year. Now, I was accused of being an al-Qaeda leader, kidnapped by Afghan warlords and handed over to the CIA.
The beginning of my ordeal
While I was unlawfully detained at an air base in Kandahar, I could see US Air Force aeroplanes taking off and landing from the makeshift site.
When an Air Force cargo plane landed, we knew that a group of prisoners would disappear.
At the end of December 2001, around a hundred of us were held there, in wooden tents surrounded by barbed-wire walls three metres high.
From the tents, I could see US Air Force planes taking off and landing from the makeshift site.
US Marines watch a helicopter prepare to leave a US base at Kandahar airport on 23 January 2002 (Banaras Khan/AFP)
One afternoon, a group of soldiers in different uniforms from those stationed at the Kandahar site began calling the detainees by their numbers.
I was in a tent with a group of men who couldn't walk, after months of torture at the CIA black site.
I remember it vividly. The soldiers called out my number and ordered me to lie down.
They first set a dog on me and then jumped on my back before restraining me and dragging me to a tent.
They called it a processing station. I was hung up and stripped naked. Male and female soldiers stripped us, shaved our bodies, left us with no hair, mocked our genitals and kicked us.
I watched a young boy as he cried. I spat at the soldiers and told him not to be afraid. They turned their attention to me and beat my mouth hard, splitting my lip.
I spent hours hanging there naked. Then a soldier came with an orange jumpsuit, orange shoes, orange socks, an orange hat - orange everywhere.
It was my first time meeting my new "friend": the colour orange.
I don't remember ever wearing it before.
A uniform given to a detainee lies on a bed in a cell at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay on 23 August 2004 (Mark Wilson/AFP)
At that point, I didn't think much about the colour itself. There were also chains and shackles I'd never seen before, goggles, earmuffs, a mask, and a sign reading "BEAT ME".
They dressed me, chained me, hung the sign around my neck, covered my eyes and ears, and forced me to sit on the floor.
When it was time for prayer, I called out and tried to stand to pray. I was beaten, thrown to the floor, gagged with duct tape and strapped to a stretcher.
I could hear the roar of the Air Force engines. We waited like that for hours, then were loaded onto the plane one by one. We were chained to the floor in a circle.
I had no idea where they were taking us or what would happen.
The journey
On board, the soldiers welcomed us with beatings and humiliation, sitting on us and posing for photos.
Every 10 or 15 minutes, I was beaten, as the sign around my neck had instructed.
Loud music, loud engines, pain and sensory deprivation. It was hard to breathe. The shackles on my hands and legs were so tight that I could feel the pain shooting to my brain.
I prayed the journey wouldn't last long.
Hours passed and the pain got worse. I lost feeling in my hands and feet. The earmuff frame dug into my head; I was bleeding, but the beatings never stopped.
When the plane landed, I felt a sense of relief that the journey was over. But that didn’t last.
We were dragged onto another plane, and the journey continued. I was dying, struggling to breathe, unable to hold my body up any longer.
I thought I would die. I prayed to Allah to forgive me and accept me.
I heard someone calling out for prayer: "Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar." Soldiers silenced him immediately. After that, whenever we sensed it was prayer time, we would nudge each other with our elbows to pass the message, and we prayed as best we could under the circumstances.
The next leg of the journey was longer than the first. Where were they taking us? When would it end?
I kept praying to Allah to make it easier for all of us. Someone had already collapsed against me. I was glad I could at least serve as some support.
Finally, the plane landed.
Despite all the pain, I was relieved: Alhamdulillah.
Soldiers started pulling us out one by one. I couldn't walk. I was dragged and passed from one person to another. I could hear laughter.
'Only cowards beat and abuse men who are chained and shackled. Only cowards act that way'
I was chained again, and someone shouted loudly in English while a translator repeated it in Arabic: "You are under the control of the United States Marines. If you try anything, we will eliminate you."
The man kept cursing and humiliating us; the translator added his own insults, too.
I didn't care who he was. To me, they were just a group of cowards. Only cowards beat and abuse men who are chained and shackled. Only cowards act that way.
The bus drove a short distance, then stopped, and I felt us moving over water - a sea.
I felt a kind of relief at the sea. Welcome, friend, I thought. The sea broke through the sensory deprivation.
That was my first clue: the sea was nearby.
The boat sailed for 20 or 30 minutes, then the bus drove again for another 30 to 45 minutes. The Marines spent the whole time beating us. One soldier kept hitting my head from the front and back at the same time. I saw flashes of light each time.
The bus finally stopped. The Marines pulled us out one by one and forced us to kneel on sharp gravel. Hours passed like that. My body refused to cooperate, and the beatings continued.
A dog barked loudly again and sniffed my body. I was barely conscious. I didn’t care much anymore about what came next.
I'd stopped worrying long before, back at the CIA black site, where it had been worse.
I had no feeling left about what was coming.
Oh Allah, I am in your hands. Please don't give them control over me.
Our journey had gone by land, sky, sea, and land again. I never wanted to go back in the air again.
Arriving at Gitmo
After hours of waiting and listening to men scream in pain, soldiers came and dragged my body and threw me onto the concrete, before cutting my orange uniform off my body and stripping me naked again.
I wanted them to remove the hood, the earmuffs, the goggles, the duct tape, the cuffs on my hands and legs.
I'd lost all feeling.
But they didn't.
I felt strong pressure from water over my body, then something like liquid soap and a large, rough brush scraping over my skin. They pretended it was a shower, but it was humiliation and more beating.
I was dragged again to more humiliation, a cavity search, over and over. They laughed and asked, "Where is Osama bin Laden? Welcome, Mr Commander."
A photo was taken. I couldn't see anything. Fingerprints and other procedures followed, but I couldn't make out most of them.
