A reporter’s reflections on 9/11 and the “war on terror”

Foreign Editor David Pratt crossed paths with Osama bin Laden, the man who ­masterminded the 9/11 attacks, long before the Americans were in Afghanistan (Image: Andrew Lichtenstein)

Twenty-five years ago, the collective shock of the terrorist attacks on the US was upon us. Foreign Editor David Pratt’s essay recounts what it was like to report on their aftermath and how those events shaped our world

IT would be about 17 years ago now. Embedded as a correspondent with a US military unit, I found myself sitting one afternoon swapping stories with American helicopter pilots in the shade of a sweltering hot day at their airfield base near the Afghan city of Jalalabad. As we chatted, I asked a casual question.