Ahmed Maher, Egyptian Foreign Minister
"It didn't look real. It was so unbelievable, so impossible, so unexpected. I realised this would have unique repercussions..."

Alastair Campbell, the UK prime minister's chief press secretary
"People imagine that because you're the government you know incredible ways of finding out what's happening. The truth is we were listening to Radio Five..."

Amr Moussa, the Arab League's Secretary General
"These are elements that do not represent society, are outside the framework of mainstream society of any nation..."

Charles Powell, British Envoy to Syria
"It was beyond all previous experience of terrorism. It was a different sort of terrorism..."

Chris Patten, the UK's former Governor of Hong Kong
"It was rubble and smoke and death and speculation..."

Sir Christopher Meyer, British Ambassador to the US
"It was extremely difficult to take in a) what had happened, the enormity of it, and b) what the consequences were going to be..."

Douglas Feith, US Defence Undersecretary
"It was very frustrating being away at a crucial moment like that..."

Dr Javad Zarif, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister
"11th September showed us that all of us are vulnerable..."

Jeremy Greenstock, British Ambassador to the UN
"We realised that thousands of people had been killed, and that the world wasn't going to be the same again..."

Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General
"We were attacked and collectively rose to the occasion and realised we had to defend ourselves..."

Lord Levy, British Envoy to the Middle East
"I made some phone calls to say that this mustn't be treated as a war against Islam and that we had to try and stand together..."

Michael Steiner, head of the United Nations mission in Kosovo
"The message was solidarity... We wanted to make clear that we were standing with the Americans..."

Nabil Sha'ath, Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Palestinian Authority
"It was like seeing the cub of the lion being eaten by the hyenas and knowing that the lion is going to roar and just go mad at everything that moves in the forest. It was tragic, it was abominable, it was unbelievable..."

Richard Armitage, US Deputy Secretary of State
"We were quite suspicious of Osama Bin Laden, but it took us several days for that noose to tighten significantly enough to make the president absolutely confident that he could point the finger..."

Richard Haass, US Special Envoy to Ireland
"It was quite extraordinary going to a place - Belfast - that had been, for a lot of Americans, synonymous with terrorism and suddenly, quite tragically, it was a lot safer than it was in New York or Washington..."

Sergei Lavrov, Russian Ambassador to the UN
"Passers-by gathered around cars and listened [to the radio] and shared in this shock and tragedy, trying to understand what it was all about. It was very emotional..."

Shimon Peres, former Israeli Prime Minister
"I felt instinctively like an American, like I belonged to those people: to their victims, to their heroism, to their determination..."

Stephen Evans, British diplomat
"I said: 'We all have to work on a possibility that it will be Osama Bin Laden. Or that people will assume that it's Osama Bin Laden. In either case there could be implications for the security of British nationals in Afghanistan..."

Wang Ying-Fan, Chinese Ambassador to the UN
"We were all aware that in the Twin Towers so many people were working there, including the offices of more than twenty Chinese corporations. I had some good friends there too..."