Blindspot

Time has flattened our understanding of the 9/11 terror attacks. There’s a sense that they came out of the clear blue sky of the day itself. They didn’t. We'll revisit the evidence and question the people at the center of the story. Voices featured in this trailer include Jim O’Grady, Cofer Black, Steve Simon, John Anticev, Huthaifa Azzam, Michael Scheuer, Emad Salem, Mary Jo White, Cynthia Storer, and Matthew Besheer.  The first two episodes drop Wednesday, September 9. Subscribe now.

Emad Salem has been called one of the most successful undercover agents in the history of the FBI. In a rare interview, Salem opens up about the personal price he paid for foiling the Landmarks Plot and bringing down a dangerous terrorist cell.  It’s been more than 20 years since Salem testified against terrorists linked to Al Qaeda in open court; he’s been in hiding ever since...

The 9/11 attacks were so much more than a bolt from the blue on a crisp September morning. They were more than a decade in the making. Our story starts in a Midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom in 1990. Shots ring out and the extremist rabbi, Meir Kahane, lies mortally wounded. His assassin, El-Sayyid Nosair, is connected to members of a Brooklyn mosque who are training to fight with Islamic freedom fighters in Afghanistan...

In 1981, the radical cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman -- known as The Blind Sheikh -- inspires the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat at a military ceremony. One of the soldiers present is Emad Salem. He swears revenge against the Sheikh. Cut to: 1990. Salem is retired from the Egyptian army and scratching out a living as an immigrant in New York. NYPD Detective Louis Napoli and FBI Special Agent John Anticev approach him with a potentially life-altering request...

NYPD Detective Louis Napoli and FBI Special Agent John Anticev fear an attack is coming, but without their mole, Emad Salem, they’re blind to the machinations of the Brooklyn terror cell. Then on February 26, 1993, a bomb goes off in the basement parking garage of the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring more than a thousand. We follow investigators as they chase down clues and round up suspects, including one who bungles his way directly into the hands of the FBI...

FBI informant Emad Salem is close to not only the Blind Sheikh but his trusted lieutenant, an ambitious terrorist named Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali. Salem soon finds himself at the Statue of Liberty with Siddig Ali; their goal is not to enjoy their visit but figure out how to destroy it with a bomb...

The World Trade Center was built with soaring expectations. Completed in 1973, its architect, Minoru Yamasaki, hoped the towers would stand as “a representation of man’s belief in humanity” and “world peace.” He even took inspiration from the Great Mosque in the holy city of Mecca with its tall minarets looking down on a sprawling plaza. What he did not expect was that the buildings would become a symbol to some of American imperialism and the strangling grip of global capitalism...

Osama bin Laden began his life as the son of a contractor made fabulously wealthy by the Saudi Arabian oil boom. From an early age, bin Laden shows himself to be different from his Western-leaning family. He forges a close relationship with the radical preacher Abdullah Azzam, who he joins as a mujahideen fighter in the Afghan War...

It’s the late 1990s and the question tying policy makers at the highest levels of the U.S. government into knots: How should we respond to a relatively scattered group that is pulling off bloody attacks on our foreign installations and soldiers? In other words, how to deal with Al Qaeda? This is the group responsible for terror attacks such as the deadly bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And its leader, Osama bin Laden, has promised more attacks...

“The Ghost” is the nickname that Port Authority Detective Matthew Besheer and FBI Special Agent Frank Pellegrino give to the man they’ve been hunting for years but can’t quite catch: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- also known as KSM. He’s the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, and he picks up his plot to hijack planes and fly them into buildings...