9/11 and the unfinished war on terror

I was just settling down in my assignment as ambassador to Indonesia in Jakarta in September 2001 when news broke that commercial aircraft had ploughed into New York’s iconic Twin Towers. One was glued to the TV screen for hours, watching replays of the planes flying straight into the buildings, creating huge fireballs followed by the towers collapsing into a tangled heap. There were distressing images of people leaping to their death, trying desperately to escape the incandescent flames engulfing the buildings. I can still recall the pictures of New Yorkers running away from the disaster site, covered in ash…