FBI agent's relentless fight against terrorism and his tragic death on 9/11
A photograph of John P. O''Neill sits between a red, white and blue ribbon with "God Bless American" written on it and a photograph of the World Trade Center towers prior to a memorial mass October 9, 2001 for O''Neill at Old St. Patrick's Church in
Special Agent John O’Neill held a unique position fighting against terrorism while working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Today, his name is remembered among those lost on September 11, 2001, killed in the very kind of attack he had spent years warning the country could happen.
O’Neill began his career with the FBI in the 1970s, rising from a fingerprint clerk to become one of the bureau’s leading experts on national security and counterterrorism.
The backstory:
Throughout the 1990s, the United States increasingly confronted the threat posed by Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network. The day O’Neill began working in the FBI’s New York counterterrorism office coincided with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Three years later, a truck bomb exploded at the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. Air Force personnel. In 1998, coordinated bombings targeted the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, including 12 Americans.
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Dig deeper:
O’Neill confronted the growing terrorist threat head-on. As he rose through the FBI’s counterterrorism ranks, becoming chief of the FBI's counterterrorism division at one point, he became increasingly focused on bin Laden and the danger posed by international terrorist networks. In 1997, he was named special agent in charge of the FBI’s National Security Division in New York, overseeing sensitive investigations while pushing the bureau to devote greater attention to the emerging threat.
What they're saying:
"A lot of these groups now have the capability and the support infrastructure in the United States to attack us here if they choose to do so," O’Neill was quoted as saying in a May 1997 Associated Press story.
One of O’Neill’s final major assignments demonstrated that focus. In October 2000, suicide bombers detonated an explosives-laden boat alongside the USS Cole during a refueling stop in Yemen, killing 17 U.S. sailors and injuring dozens more. O’Neill became deeply involved in the investigation as authorities pursued al-Qaeda’s role in the attack.
But O’Neill’s efforts were complicated by disputes over access, jurisdiction and cooperation among U.S. agencies and foreign officials. Those frustrations, along with complications during the later years of his career, lead to his retirement from the FBI in August 2001.
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The other side:
His next chapter would bring him back to a place that had figured prominently in his counterterrorism career. O’Neill became chief of security at the World Trade Center, beginning the job just weeks before September 11.
When terrorists struck the towers that morning, O’Neill reportedly sprang into action. In the chaotic moments after the attack, he was seen helping with evacuation efforts, gathering information and doing what he had spent much of his career doing, responding to terrorism.
Then the towers collapsed.
O’Neill’s remains were later recovered from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.
For years, John O’Neill had warned that the threat posed by al-Qaeda could eventually reach American soil. On September 11, 2001, the longtime terrorism investigator found himself at the center of the attack he had spent much of his career trying to prevent.
Big picture view:
Earlier in his career, he spoke at a National Strategy Forum in Chicago and said, "I think interesting times lie ahead. Certainly, we as citizens will be challenged. I know the FBI will continue to be challenged in the years to come. Unfortunately, I cannot predict that no Americans will be injured or killed as a result of a terrorist attack."
His story remains one of the cruelest ironies of 9/11: a man who devoted his career to understanding and stopping terrorism ultimately lost his life confronting it one final time.
The Source: This story was written with information provided by the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and the Associated Press. This story was reported from Orlando.