the first decade of the 21st century

THE FIRST DECADE OF THE 21ST CENTURY

2000 - 2009

A hijacked commercial plane approaches the World Trade Centre shortly before crashing into the landmark skyscraperOn 11 September 2001 in New York.

A person falls from the north tower of New York's World Trade Centre on Sept. 11, 2001 after terrorists crashed twohijacked airliners into the World Trade Centre and brought down the twin 110-story towers.

Osama bin Laden is seen at an undisclosed location in this Al-Jazeera television image broadcast on Oct. 7, 2001.Bin Laden praised God for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and swore America ‘will never dream of security until the infidel'sarmies leave the land of Muhammad,’ in a videotaped statement aired after the strike launched Sunday by the U.S.and Britain in Afghanistan

A young Afghan woman shows her face in public for the first time after 5 years of Taliban Sharia law as she waits at a fooddistribution centre in central Kabul on November 14, 2001. Under its strict interpretation of Islam, the Taliban ordered allwomen hidden behind head-to-toe burqas.

Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl at an undisclosed location in January 2002 with a gun pointed to his head.The kidnappers of Pearl later beheaded the journalist, cutting his body to pieces and burying them outside Karachi

Smoke covers the presidential palace compound in Baghdad on 21 March 2003 during a massive US-led air raid on the Iraqi capital.

US President George W. Bush meets pilots and crew members of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln as they return to the US after being deployed in the Gulf region on 1 May 2003.

An Iraqi prisoner of war comforts his 4-year-old son near An Najaf, Iraq on March 31, 2003.

Iraqi civilians and U.S. soldiers pull down a statue of Saddam Hussein in downtown Baghdad on April 9, 2003

Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein being dragged out of his hiding following his capture by US troops on 13 December 2003 in an underground hole at a farm in the village of ad-Dawr, near his hometown of Tikritin northern Iraq

A Russian police officer carries a released baby from the school seized by heavily armed masked men and women in thetown of Beslan in the province of North Ossetia near Chechnya, September 2, 2004. An armed gang, holding hundreds ofpeople hostage in a Russian school, on Thursday freed four infants and at least two women. By the end of the crisis, over385 people were killed including 31 hostage takers and 186 children

An Indian woman mourns the death of her relative who was killed in a tsunami in Cuddalore, some 180 kilometres (112 miles) south of the southern Indian city of Madras onDecember 28, 2004.

Bodies of victims are evacuated after a train exploded near the Atocha train station in Madrid 11 March 2004. At least 131 people were killed and some 400 injured early 11 March 2004 in near-simultaneous explosions on three trains in Madrid at the height of morning commuter traffic, the Spanish interior ministry said. In what appeared to be a deliberate attack staged only 72 hours ahead of Spanish general elections, the blasts went off on a long-distance high-speed carrier and two suburban trains packed with commuters

Iraqis chant anti-American slogans as charred bodies hang from a bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah,west of Baghdad on March 31, 2004

Bodies of the victims of the tsunami float in a river in the centre of Banda Aceh, Indonesia, on Jan. 2, 2005.The total toll of dead and missing from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami topped 230,000, according to government figures.

The body of a victim of Hurricane Katrina floats in floodwaters in New Orleans on 1 September, 2005. Katrina was thecostliest hurricane on record, and took the lives of over 1,800 people.

Paul Dadge, right, helps injured tube passenger Davinia Turrell away from Edgeware Road tube station in London followingan explosion, during a series of bombings in London's transport system on July 7th, 2005. Four British Muslim men carriedout the suicide attacks, killing 56 people. including themselves

French midfielder Zinedine Zidane (left) gesturing after head-butting Italian defender Marco Materazzi during theWorld Cup 2006 final football match between Italy and France at Berlin's Olympic Stadium on 9 July 2006

YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley, 29, left, and Steven Chen, 27, pose with their laptops at their office loft in San Mateo, Calif., on March 29, 2006

Eighteen floodgates are opened at the Three Gorges dam, 22 July 2007 in Yichang, in central China'sHubei province, to release flood waters approaching the warning level line.

Journalist Kenji Nagai of AFP lies injured after police and military officials fired upon and then charged atprotesters in Yangon's city centre September 27, 2007. Nagai, 50, was shot by soldiers as they fired to disperse the crowd. Nagai later died.

A woman takes her dead son into her arms, as she grieves for her six-year-old son, Dhiya Thamer, who was killed whentheir family car came under fire by unknown gunmen in Baqouba, capital of Iraq's Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad,Iraq, on Sept. 16, 2007. The boy's ten-year old brother, Qusay, was injured in the attack as the family returned fromenrolling the children in school, where Dhiya was to begin his first year

A Kenyan boy screams as he sees kenyan policeman with a baton approach the door of his home in the Kibera slum ofNairobi 17 January 2008. Hundreds of police who had earlier clashed with supporters of Kenya's opposition leaderRaila Odinga at the entrance of the slum moved into the shantytown and did a house to house search for protestors

A woman cries as she cannot find her four-year-old daughter and husband on top of the ruins of a destroyed school inearthquake-hit Beichuan county, Sichuan province, May 17, 2008. Nearly 70,000 Chinese lost their lives in the earthquakeand resulting landslides and floods.

An indigenous woman holds her child while trying to resist the advance of Amazonas state policemen who were expellingthe woman and some 200 other members of the Landless Movement from a privately-owned tract of land on the outskirtsof Manaus, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon March 11, 2008.

A U.S. Marine, from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has a close call after Taliban fighters opened fire near Garmser inHelmand Province of Afghanistan May 18, 2008. The Marine was not injured.

Drummers perform during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics at the National Stadium on August 8, 2008 in Beijing

Jamaica's Usain Bolt crosses the finish line to win the gold in the men's 200-meter final during the athletics competitions in the National Stadium at the Beijing 2008 Olympics in Beijing, on Aug. 20, 2008

Protesters hold signs behind Richard Fuld, Chairman and Chief Executive of Lehman Brothers Holdings, as he takes his seat to testify at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the causes and effects of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, on Capitol Hill in Washington, October 6, 2008. Fuld told Congress on that U.S. banking regulators knew exactly how Lehman was pricing its distressed assets and about its liquidity in the months before its collapse.

A gunman identified by police as Ajmal Qasab walks at the Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai, Indiaon Nov 26 2008. Qasab was the only surviving terrorist of the ten attackers who carried out a series of attacks in Mumbaikilling over 175 and injuring over 300

A coroner examines the body of a man killed by gunmen in Medellin September 26, 2009. After a sharp fall in crime overrecent years that raised hope of peace in Medellin, Colombia, the poor neighborhoods of the city are once again at war.The murder rate has more than doubled since the 2008 extradition of Medellin´s crime boss, known as Don Berna, whichleft a power vacuum in the local drug and extortion rackets

An Iranian woman supporting former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi covers her face with his picture duringa pre-election gathering at a stadium in Tehran June 9, 2009.

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