United 93 Movie Reviews

"United 93"  What a splendid way to offer tribute to the unceremoniously forgotten brave souls! The calamity that shook the world “the 11th of september “, and left a pang in everyone’s heart, packed with hatred , anxiety and fear ! there was utter chaos around.Liitle did people know that there were many more who lost there life defeating the enemy’s malicious intentions! The directors thirst for perfection is visible in each and every scene, which leaves a lasting impact in our heart.

The intelligently crafted screenplay does the trick! There is some spine chilling performance by the 3 terrorists, who board the flight named united 93. the story revolves around this plane , focusing on the actual predicament faced by the passengers by the time they realize that they have been hijacked for no negotiable reason. they sense their peril,  which instills in them the fortitude, the urge to go for it ! defeat the enemy’s- "hopelessy less benign" intentions. This plane was the one heading towards the white house to crash it down.had it not been for the  daring efforts of the passengers the world would have sensed some greater catastrophe which would have put the world in greater gloom.

the directors craftmenship is at praise! there is  an much intellectual edge, which forces us to think smart.its not  just a story  of the series of tragedy , its a series of sequences, which we journey along, sailing in the same boat with the characters! although the fact is known , an element of suspense and thrill is maintained throughout . the viewers are filled with uncertainity throughout. It is a treat to us to  feel so close to the reality, and get that nerve  tingling experience.bravo!!

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Sept. 11, 2001, was a dark day in the history of America. Everyone aware of what happened on that doomed day but for many thinking of those horror events makes them shiver and bring tears in their eyes. Forget about re-living through same events on silver screen, many tries to avoid conversations regarding 911. Writer director Paul Greengrass swim into opposite direction and created modern masterpiece called United 93 (2006), which in nutshell is docudrama of the story of the passengers of United Flight 93 and their courageous efforts to wrestle control of the hijacked plane from the terrorists.

Back Story of Four Hijacked Planes

American Airlines Flight 11, which routinely flies from Boston to Los Angeles was hijacked and crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 8:46 A.M.

United Airlines Flight 175, which routinely flies from Boston to Los Angeles was hijacked and crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 9:03 A.M.

American Airlines Flight 77, which routinely flies from Washington to Los Angeles was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon in Washington City at 9:37 A.M.

United Airlines Flight 93, which routinely flies from New York to San Francisco was hijacked and was the only one of the four planes that did not reach its intended target (US Capitol in Washington, DC), instead crashing in an empty field just outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, about 150 miles northwest of Washington at 10:03 A.M.

Story

September 11, 2001 - Four hijackers wakes up in hotel room somewhere near Newark International Airport, New York. After finishing their normal morning routines, they embark upon their biggest task of their life - To complete suicide mission with the weapon called United Flight 93.

In the mean time, Newark Airport continues on their routine work - United Flight 93 is getting ready for long journey from New York to San Francisco, flight Attendants and crew members are getting on board, and passengers are passing through security gates. Once all the passengers are on board, flight delays for a while to clear up the runways making hijackers little bit nervous.

While Flight 93 waiting for its turn to take off, one of the controllers at Boston overhears some of hijacking conversation from Flight 11. Within minutes, controllers in New York see Flight 11 in their sky at the lower altitude over Manhattan and suddenly lost it from the radar.

As Flight 93 flies away from New York limit, CNN brakes out news that small civilian plane crashed into North Tower of WTC. FAA operational manager at National Air traffic control center couldn't believe what's going on. Soon he gets the news that United Flight 175 seems hijacked too. Before even FAA, controllers at airport towers, or military command solves the puzzle of what went into first tower of WTC, controllers at LaGuardia tower sees the Flight 175 goes into south tower of WTC. FAA makes tough decision to stop all flight taking off from Boston and Newark Airports and no planes will fly over New York region.

As breakfast is getting served on Flight 93 and whole nation is wondering what's going on skies of New York, National Air Traffic Control Center sees one plane after another abandoning their flight plan. FAA tries to coordinate civilian, military, and presidential command chains but failed to open up the communication link. All air traffic controllers notified to make contact to every flight flying in their region and send a warning for potential cockpit intrusion.

In the mean time, United 93 are still flying on its regular path. A controller at Cleveland sees United 93 and sends the warning regarding potential cockpit attacks. Some of the terrorists in United 93 are getting restless and some are still waiting for right moment to take over the flight. Before pilots in United 93 figures out overall picture, terrorists in the flight breaks into cockpit, kills pilots immediately, seizes the control of the plane with the false bomb, and changes the flight plan towards Washington D.C. Two hijackers take over the cockpit and two hijackers pushes all the flight attendants and passengers at the back of the plane.

At the same time, CNN breaks out another news that hijacked plane AA Flight 77 went into Pentagon. Shocked FAA Operational Manager, Ben Sliney declares national emergency and shuts down US airspace and aviation traffic. He orders all flying planes to land nearest airports as soon as possible at any cost.

In United 93, terrified passengers initially thought that they would be soon landing on nearest airport. But, once passenger learned about hijacked plane attacks on WTC through phone calls to their loved ones and flight attendant sees the dead bodies of pilots, passengers got the idea that they are part of suicide mission. They decide to take an action. As brave passengers attacks on cockpit, in the fight for plane control, terrorist changes the course of flight from horizontal to vertical upside-down. After some moments of hand-fight, United 93 crashes into an empty field in Pennsylvania about 150 miles northwest of its real destination, US Capitol, Washington DC.

Analysis

United 93 is real-time recreation of what happened on eastern American skies on Sep 11 2001 especially chronically events of the United Flight 93. Even though United 93 has been treated as a realistic thriller with non-stop action, jaw-dropping tense moments, it is also a gripping and emotional drama of heroism and bravery.

One of the reasons why United 93 works is simply because of its outstanding screenplay. Some of the ingredients in the story works extremely well - it doesn’t have any melodramas or over-exaggerated patriotic speeches, even though we all know it was real story happened in past, it feels like we are re-living the history since its been told in present tense, even though there is no direct footage or reference of Al-Qaeda, Osama-bin-laden, President Bush, we as a viewer constantly thinking about them.

To make United 93 more authentic, Paul Greengrass used unknown actors as passengers of the flight to avoid any familiarity and affection of superstars. Many of the roles of flight attendants, pilots, and air-traffic controllers played by actual airline employees - most notably FAA operations manager Ben Sliney plays himself.

Some of the moments in United 93 are unforgettable - controllers in Newark air-traffic tower sees the second airplane crash into WTC and sequence of “Let’s Roll” in climax when passengers and crewmembers are planning to take over cockpit are standouts.

Conclusion

United-93 is inspirational and heart wrenching film. The way passengers and flight crew members counter-attack on terrorists is inspirational. It gives us testament that doesn't matter what kind of worse situations we are in, doesn't matter we ever part of circumstances required bravery or not, there is always room for heroism. The way passengers are calling their loved ones is heartbreaking. Even though United 93 recalls raw memories and opens up fresh wounds, it's one of the most powerful motion pictures of the recent times.

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If you asked many Americans today if they wanted to see United 93, many would be either optimistic and want to see this film for sure and others would be adamant not to see it. The reason for this disparity that so many Americans, even those who were not even on the East coast at the time of the Terrorist attacks were so shaken by the atrocities that took place on that September 11th day as they awoke to the crumbling Twin Towers and very disturbing pictures on the news and do not want to relive it. I was one of those people that did not want to relive it and for some reason felt compelled a few days ago to watch it. I am glad that I changed my mind.

We all know the general story of how the United flight 93 went and how the passengers demonstrated great courage as they challenged the 4 terrorists. Heroes, they caused the plane to crash into the Earth, rather than to be crashed into a target, outlined by the terrorists that hijacked the plane in the name of Allah. I learned many new aspects that I did not know, both in the details and how I felt about 9/11 and our world, what part we Americans play.

The film begins by showing us the normal events of passengers going through security and finding their assigned seats on a seemingly ordinary day. We also see the terrorists, go through security with knives in their belts, preparing for the hijacking. As each boards the plane and seated in first class, we know what is going to happen, the ending and still the story is fascinating as the details are filled in to what we already know.

Of the 4 aircraft hijacked that day, United 93 is the only one that did not reach its target. It crashed near Shanksville, PA at 10:03am. No one survived.

Military commanders were not notified that United 93 had been hijacked until 4 minutes after it crashed. The nearest fighter jets were 100 miles away.

At 10:18am, the President authorized the military to engage hijacked aircrafts. Fearing an accidental shoot down, military commanders chose not to pass the order to the pilots in the air.

By 12:06pm every civilian airliner over America had been forced to land. Amidst an unprecedented military mobilization, US airspace was closed until further notice.

There were no well-known actors, except for some bit actors as passengers and the film was done in real time. I would have liked to have the time stamp on the screen to relay better the time line. The Air Traffic Controllers were also real, playing themselves in a re-enactment. The ensemble cast read details about their counterpart characteristics down to what each wore, what would be eating and doing (books, music, etc.). The actors that portrayed the Terrorists were really good. The one that flew the plane clearly showed that he was really pained with what he was about to do, but by his belief in what he was doing in the name of his religion he maintained his intensity and that came across. One of the other terrorists was young and looked so innocent and I was surprised to see how he was really a very mean and demented guy, unlike his more intense accomplices. The other two were also portrayed well, but the first two were really memorable.

What was so appalling to me and had me very tense throughout was how we were working as a team and communicating, or not. Both the President and the Vice President were unreachable, the President was reading with an Elementary School class and even then, he was slow to act.

The FAA was also ill-equipped and because of this and the Administration’s unavailability the terrorists were successful. The military never even had a chance to defend us. How appalling is it that The United States, the most powerful country in the world was unable to defend ourselves?

Even more appalling yet is that we are still ill-prepared. Examples: Hurricane Katrina and the most recent crash of Baseball New York Yankee Player Cory Lydle’s Cessna into a high-rise condo in New York City. At least on that day, the military was ready to react.

I highly recommend this movie to those have opted out or are “on the fence”. Directed by Paul Greengrass, this was really done well and high above any expectation that I have. Talking with other people that have shared this experience, they agree.

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Have you ever thought about what you were doing at your place when something disastrous was going on in some other part of the world? On 9/11 when it happened, I was sitting cool in my college hostel watching a Tamil movie in KTV. Suddenly when one of the guys switched to the news channel we saw smokes coming out of the targets and we didn’t realize how biggest a disaster was happening at that time and thought it as a fire accident and switched back to KTV. But what if you could see simultaneously what was happening at the same time (i.e., when I was watching movie in KTV) inside those planes that hit the targets. A lot was happening in two other planes one targeted on Pentagon and the other on the White House. “United 93” is one of hardest hitting, real (literally) life docu-drama that brings those moments of chaos in Air control offices and also in the United 93 plane which was hijacked to hit White house, like how it would have happened on that day.

It is quite usual in Hollywood to make movies based on real life incidents and disasters. We had movies like a romantic epic ‘Titanic’ which conceived the accident with a love story in the fore and making the accident as a backdrop. Before, if I were asked about my favourite among the Hollywood movies made, based on real life incidents, my immediate reply would have been Spielberg’s ‘Schindler’s List’ but not anymore. These movies visualized the real incident as authentic as possible but nothing can come near to what Paul Greengrass has achieved in “United 93”. The happenings on United 93 are written as authentically as possible based on the information got from the Black box.

There are no newly married couples, no two passengers who fall in love after getting into United 93 and trying to help each other to escape from the situation, no father trying to save his son, no kid trying to save its puppy, no hero fighting with the villains to save the plane and no usual clichés anywhere in the movie. It is just the event; the incident itself is the anti-hero of the movie. You can very well understand the intention of the director not to give importance to any single character from the very first scene of the movie. The passengers who are going to board United 93 flight talk to their relatives and pals over phone and no conversation is given importance and you just hear a lot of noise as like how you would hear those conversations when you were sitting there in the lobby as one of the passenger and even the visuals are the random shots of all the passengers on how one would have a quick look at his co-passengers and this totality remains till the end.

We know what happened, we know the ending, and we know it is going to happen but as the movie races towards the end, out heart beats faster and tense creeps into our mind like those passengers on board and it yearns for the safe landing of the flight. Never before while watching a movie, I have said ‘Oh! My God’ as many times as I said while watching this movie. Even the villain, the hijackers are the not the villains here because they earn equal and sometimes much more sympathy of ours than the passengers get. Their constant prayers to God, their constant dilemma about the intention of their actions, their fear, trembling and one of them saying final goodbye to his wife over phone are as human as no villain can be in a movie. Yet they do what they have been ordered to do. What hell on the earth would have prepared a human mind to blindly follow someone’s instruction and do something like this on the cost of his own life?

More than the happenings in the plane, the chaos in the air control offices in the land is captured authentically with some of the officers playing themselves. It takes a little time to understand at least for a non-American like me who is who and what they all are doing over there, and though initially technical jargons of the officers puts you off, we will slowly get used to the terms and indulge ourselves in the proceedings and that is where the success of the screenplay lies which maintains a right balance between raw real facts and human side of it. Paul Greengrass please take a bow for capturing the things with much sensitivity and yet without hurting any of the victims of the tragedy.

“United 93” is an experience not to be missed.

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We rented the movie called United 93 a few months ago.

United 93 was directed and written by Paul Greengrass. It was produced by Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Studio Canal, Universal Pictures and Working Title Films. It was distributed by Universal Pictures.

The original soundtrack was composed by John Powell.

Rated R. It takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes to watch it.

What You Should Know:

Seven cities in the United States were targeted to be hit:

Boston, New York, Newark, Washington DC, Hernon, Shanskville, Pittsburgh and Cleveland.

The Main Stars:

J. J. Johnson plays Capt. Jason M. Dahl.

Gary Commock plays First Officer LeRoy Homer.

David Basche plays Todd Beamer.

Trish Gates plays Sandra Brandshaw.

Polly Adams plays Deborah Welsh.

Kate Grant plays Lauren Grandocolas.

Cheyenne Jackson plays Mark Bingham.

Khalid Abdalla plays Ziad Jarrah.

Lewis Alsmari plays Saeed al-Ghamdi.

Omar Berdouni plays Ahmed al-Haznawi.

Jamie Harding plays Ahmed al-Nami.

Many of the air traffic controllers and military personnel are playing themselves.

The Plot:

There won't be any trivia in this review because I think it is to serious a film to use it.

On September 11, 2001 there were forty passages on United flight 93 were sitting on the plane waiting for it to take off.

Their flight had been delayed because the pilots and the World learned of the attachs on the two towers of the World Trade Center in NYC and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

They eventually took off and were high-jacked and they passages tried to stop the highjackers.....and then you'll have to see the movie.

Quotes:

Todd Beamer: "Are you guys ready? Come on let us go! "

Captain Jason Dahl, (he's looking at message on display screen), "Two planes have crashed into the World Trade Center. We just flew out of Newark and the weather was beautiful." First Officer LeRoy Homer, "It must have been student pilots".

Mohammed Atta, "We have some planes but not all of them."

The Soundtrack:

Prayers, Pull the Tapes, Take Off, 2nd Plane Crash, Making the Bomb, The Pilots 1:21, The Pentagon, Phone Calls, The End and Dedication

The Extras Were:

What the Families about the movie, Paul Greengrass, (the director), thoughts, a few memorial pages and interviews with the families.

What I Thought:

I thought that the Government had been prepared to deal with this situation, (by their military and the Federal Aviation Administration). I don't even think they are today.

This movie may not be for everyone because it is hard to watch. The music was haunting.

It must have been difficult for the cinematographers to film this movie because the sets looked like a real plane.

The highjackers, passages and crew looked like normal people.

I felt that everyone involved in making this film tried to make this a dignified story.

Thanks for reading my review.

©LL2006

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Psst - This section contains some inside trivia about the film

Quotes - Good One Liners from the movie

Oops - Goofs from the movie

Director – Paul Greengrass

Screenplay – Paul Greengrass

It’s a normal sunny day on September 11, 2001 and people are boarding the Flight United 93 set to take off from Newark, New Jersey to San Fransisco, California. A good 3 hour flight covering nearly 5000 KMS. While in the New York Airport, the air traffic controller staff is busy controlling flights in and around New York City. Suddenly one air traffic controller sees that one Flight American Airlines Flight 11 is going off route and not responding to him. Suspecting a possible hijack, everyone is on high alert. All of a sudden, we see Smoke coming from one of the World Trade Centre towers. This is because a flight – United Airlines Flight 175 has just hit the tower out of no where. While everyone is still recovering from this shock, the American Airlines flight 11 strikes the Second Tower of the World Trade Centre out of no where. This causes major chaos in all the flights in and around the east coast and causes the authorities to cancel all flights that are coming to anywhere in USA and all departures are cancelled as well. The first priority is to bring all the flights hovering on US air space, to ground. While all that is getting figured, an American Airlines, flight 77 crashes in to the Pentagon. USA is put on Red Alert and then the air traffic controller in New York Comes to know that the United Airlines flight 93 is taken over by 5 hhijackers and their target is White House, Washington DC. Since, it is confirmed that there is no way in which the flight is going to land, they decide to take the permission of the President of USA to blow the flight in Air with the help of United States Airforce. But the passengers, who are unaware of the happenings in ground, have decided, that since they have outnumbered the terrorists, they will manhandle them and have one of the passengers, who has previous flight experience, take over the flight. Hard core documentary type movie made by Paul Greengrass. All the starcast is relatively unknown and this was done deliberately by Paul Greengrass in order to make the movie as authentic as possible. Excellent Direction and Script and the last 30 minutes when the passengers are confronting the terrorists on board is extremely realistic and very intense. Superb Movie on one of the biggest Tragedies of 21st century. A must see for movie buffs.

Psst -

1) This is the 2nd movie that Paul Greengrass made on a tragic real life event and was shot in trademark documentary type filmmaking. His first was the Bloody Sunday which was based on the 30th January 1972 tragic Irish Peace Protest in which English Policemen killed 13 innocent civilians and injured 14.

2) September 11 attack was one of the single largest terrorist attacks of the 21st century. Officially 2972 people were confirmed dead and 24 reported missing. Unofficially more then 5000 people had died. The number of people in the Ill Fated United 93 flight were 45 including 5 terrorists who had come under false identities. 200people died while jumping from the World Trade Centre Towers trying to escape fast.

3) Paul Greengrass had interviewed all the family members of the People who died aboard the United 93 flight and made sure that all the characters have similar features as that of the Victims. All of the family members co-operated by giving all the details about them, down to what clothes they had worn to the last conversation that they had while on the plane.

4) This was one of the rare instances when there was no trailers (Theatrical or otherwise) for the film and this was done, surprisingly, at the insistence of the producers.

5) The filmmakers donated the weekend gross of the movie to the Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania where the United 93 flight crashed. The Movie was made on a budget of $15 million and grossed nearly $31 million in US Alone. The Weekend Gross was nearly $1.5 Million.

6) The Civilian Air Traffic Control Scenes were done by Real Flight Controllers.

7) Lewis Alsmari plays the leader of the Terrorists Ziad Jarrah. Ziad Jarrah had come to USA before a few months to learn Air Craft Pilot Training under false identity.

8) The September 11 attack were planned by Al-Qaieda way back in 1998. The Bombings of The US Embassy in Kenya was a warning to the then President, Bill Clinton.

9) A few weeks after United 93, Another movie on the September 11 attack was released, this was Oliver Stone's much ambitious, World Trade Center.

Quotes

1) “Tell them our time has come. Our Time has come.”

2) “We have to do something, they are not going to land this plane.”

3) “Two planes have crashed into the World Trade Center? We just flew out of Newark and the weather was beautiful; Must have been student pilots. .”

Oops-

Was too engrossed to notice any goofs.

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Having no other option , I watched this movie ... in beginning when I got some idea of the plot ... I got really excited ... but alas nothing was there like a movie ... we have seen all these pictures in news channels .... Nothing in the name of acting there ... most of the times it looks like a documentary on 9/11 nothing else .... if u are looking for something really adventurous and dynamic ... its not recommended for you .... Its really Boring and unable to keep eyes on the screen ...i m really short of the words for the review too ... well wastage of money .... if u dont get any movie to watch this week then pls wait for next week releases ... watch national geographic or discovery for better experience ... If something is good about the film then that is its plot only .... and one or two scenes i.e collision of planes to the buildings .... and else there is nothing to stay for long in mind ....

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May 2, 2006. New York City.

I am just a visitor in New York, on a beautiful day in May, with an unusually free, solitary day on my hands. Watching a movie is usually what I do on these days…although the movie I picked to watch was an unusual choice for me. ”United 93”, a movie about the hijacked Flight 93 aircraft on 9/11, the one that never reached its destiny of the Capitol building in Washington DC, and crashed somewhere outside the city thanks to the heroics of its passengers. Anticipating a Hollywood’ish, dramatized account of something so real and recent, watching it in New York city, which is still reeling from the after effects of September 11th….not something I would normally do or look forward to…..but for some reason, I did end up watching the movie…and I’m so glad I did.

This movie is a recreation of actual events on United Flight 93, on the day of 9/11, screenplay based on telephone calls made by passengers on the plane to loved ones on the outside. None of the 40 passengers survived.

DIRECTOR- Paul Greengrass (British Director, “Bourne Supremacy”, “Bloody Sunday”)

CAST- Largely unknown actors.

PLOT- September 11, 2001….7-8 am…..A seemingly innocuous day for the air traffic control personnel in Boston. They are coordinating the take off of flights from the airport. The usual mix-ups and delays. Bunch of people, 40 or so of them, getting on flight United 93 from Boston to San Francisco….a motley bunch of people…some young, some old, some happy, some irritable fliers. Amongst this group are four very discernibly nervous, edgy, Middle Eastern looking passengers. (Now the reason I noticed them is because I was looking out for them, knowing how the story unfolds…but prior to the whole 9/11 event, to the innocent eye, they wouldn’t really have stood out or looked too conspicuous). Flight 93 takes a while to get off the runway, thanks to scheduling reasons, much to the anxiety of the four mysterious passengers, but it does eventually take off.

Meanwhile, the air traffic control people are experiencing something slightly different from their usual run of the mill day….a flight disappears from their radar, foreign sounding voices from the cockpit….could it possibly be a hijack….but how could that be…none of them have ever experienced that……as the chief of the centre says…the last he heard of a hijacked plane was all of 20 years ago! It soon becomes evident, to air traffic people all over the States, that a number of planes are disappearing from their radar, a number of pilots not responding…and before they know it someone asks them to turn on CNN and they see the first of four hijacked flights crash into the Twin Towers in New York. While the officials are still trying to figure out which of the missing planes it is, another one crashes into the Twin Towers.

On Flight 93 meanwhile, the four mysterious men are getting edgier by the minute…they rush to the toilet in turn…one of them taking his bag with him, a bag which has a disassembled bomb in it, which he promptly assembles and straps onto himself. About a half hour into the flight, two of the men rush upto the cockpit, slit the throats of the pilots, take over the control of the flight stick, while two of them remain behind to threaten the passengers and keep them quiet by threatening them with the strapped on bomb and some pen knives. The passengers are understandably nervous….not quite figuring out initially why they are being hijacked. As there are only two hijackers right up front, keeping watch over them some of the passengers, air hostesses, get bold and start using the aircraft phone to call outside. That is when the news starts trickling in, bit by bit, to the doomed passengers of Flight 93…loved ones they talk to tell them about the two planes crashing into the Twin Towers, one apparently crashing into the Capitol building in Washington.

They also figure out that their pilot has been killed and that their flight has changed its course. Seeing only two visibly nervous hijackers in front of them, understanding what fate awaits them if they do nothing, a bunch of passengers coordinate an assault on the hijackers, with a view to ultimately take over the controls of the flight and steer it to safety. While they are able to overcome the hijackers and diffuse the bomb, prevent the plane from crashing into Washington, they are not quite able to save themselves.

MY TAKE-

A movie that could have quite as easily taken the dramatic turn, is told in a simple, documentary like manner. No big actors, no big dramatic scenes, no overwhelming, tragic background music…nothing but the simple attempt to re-create reality. The villains of the piece are not shown as larger than life, menacing looking figures….yes, they are evil, but they are also human and have all the frailty that goes with being human. What is terrifying about them is the fixity of their purpose, the constant stream of prayer that comes out of their lips, the unshakeable belief that God is on their side and has ordained this mission. Neither are the passengers on board made out to be super-human.

Yes, they are heroes, but their actions are no more heroic than what the situation would call for. What strikes the viewer is that even in the time of extreme fear and panic, human beings can use their intelligence, and come together to try and overcome an untenable situation. Not a pleasant movie to watch. While the bravery and courage of the passengers is what one would like to take away from the experience, what remained with me long after, and still lingers, is the complete senselessness behind acts of terror, and the chilling justification used by the perpetrators that God somehow condones these acts.

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