One day, all are waiting for a ride of twelve days of quietness and relaxation aboard the Italian luxury cruise ship Achille Lauro. Everyone seems happy and content. No members of the passengers suspect that four Palestinian terrorists are among them. The most dangerous of all is their leader Molqi (Joseph Nasser). Among the hostages are Mr. Leon Klinghoffer (Burt Lancaster), and his wife Mrs Marilyn Klinghoffer.
On September 11, 2001, Port Authority Police officers John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno are patrolling the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan when they see a plane fly dangerously low overhead. As all of the police officers return to the station, they see on TV that the North Tower of the World Trade Center has been hit by the plane. Sergeant McLoughlin assigns many of the officers to assist in a precautionary evacuation attempt of the North Tower and they board a Metropolitan Transit Authority bus. On the bus, they hear reports that the South Tower is also hit by another plane. When they arrive at the World Trade Center, they realize the extent of the disaster, and see one of the victims jump out of the towers to certain death. The men proceed to get safety equipment from Building 5 and enter the concourse between the towers.
Yasmin is a young Muslim woman living in Britain. After Yasmin's husband is arrested on suspected terror charges following the September 11th attacks, she campaigns for his release from a holding center.
The story revolves around a group of people who were not connected to each other in any way other than by ill fate. These were people from different parts of India who had traveled to the US and now were boarding the ill-fated flights that crashed into the Twin Towers and Pentagon on 9/11. The story tells us about the horror of the hijack and some of the incidents that occurred on board during those horrific minutes. Some of the characters in the film die in the accident.
The film starts with animated visualizations, film segments and stock footage, a cartoon and audio quotes about spirituality by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, then shots of war, explosions, and the September 11 attacks. Then the film's title screen is given. The introduction ends with a portion of a George Carlin monologue on religion accompanied by an animated cartoon. The rest of the film is in three parts with narration by Peter Joseph.
In 2003, Maya, a young U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officer, has spent her entire brief career, since graduating from college and being recruited for the agency, focused solely on gathering intelligence related to Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, following the terrorist organization's attack on the United States in 2001. She is reassigned to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan to work with a fellow officer, Dan. During the first months of her assignment, Maya often accompanies Dan to a black site for his continuing interrogation of Ammar al-Baluchi, a detainee with suspected links to several of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks. Dan subjects the detainee to approved interrogation techniques, i.e., stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep deprivation, waterboarding, and humiliation. After failing to get al-Baluchi to give up information on an attack in Saudi Arabia, he and Maya eventually trick Ammar into divulging that an old acquaintance, who is using the alias Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, is working as a personal courier for bin Laden. Other detainees corroborate this, with some claiming Abu Ahmed delivers messages between bin Laden and a man known as Abu Faraj al-Libbi. In 2005, Abu Faraj is apprehended by the CIA and local police in Pakistan. Maya is allowed to interrogate him, but he continues to deny knowing a courier with such a name. Maya interprets this as an attempt by Faraj to conceal the importance of Abu Ahmed.