The rusted, twisted remains of a car sit in the sand.
A car bombed in a drone strike sits along the highway between Shabwa and Marib, Yemen, in 2018. Credit: Safa Al Ahmad

The Other Victims of 9/11

Published on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, this is a series of reported essays describing how the attacks that day and the “war on terror” that followed changed the lives of people outside the United States. Nearly 1 million people have died in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Yemen as a result of these post-9/11 wars, according to the Costs of War project at Brown University. The wars have displaced 38 million people from these countries, as well as Libya, the Philippines and Somalia.

An illustration in shades of blue and yellow shows drones turning into birds over a small town.

Fallujah: My Lost Hometown

By Feurat Alani

The post-9/11 narrative about Iraq pushed me back to my hometown and into journalism.

An illustration in shades of blue shows a woman standing in a ruined building as fighter jets fly past. In the corner is a burst of yellow light that could be a sunrise or explosion.

How Yemen Used the ‘War on Terror’ to Suit Its Needs

By Safa Al Ahmad

Twenty years, $850 million in U.S. military aid and nearly 400 drone strikes later, Yemen is still paying the price for being drawn into the “war on terror.”

The Writing Was on the Wall in Afghanistan Years Ago

By Emran Feroz

The more time I spent in Afghanistan, the more clear it was that the benefits of the American occupation were visible only in Kabul and other big cities.


Listen to the related Reveal episode:

Forever Wars

On 9/11, the U.S. swore to “never forget.” But who gets remembered? We hear from reporters on Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen, where the aftermath of 9/11 is acutely felt two decades later.