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| Habib Marwan attacks | |
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| Clockwise from top-left: a commuter train collides with a truck carrying explosives; James Heller is tried in front of live television; the San Gabriel Island nuclear power plant experiences a meltdown; an F-117 Nighthawk fires on Air Force One; an ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead is launched in central Iowa; Habib Marwan claims responsibility for the attacks | |
| Date: | Day 4, 7:00am PT – 6:22am PT |
| Location: | Santa Clarita, California Los Angeles, California Central Iowa |
| Target: |
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| Attack type: |
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| Casualties: | 123+ |
| Perpetrators: | Habib Marwan terrorist cell
Train bombing Nuclear meltdown Air Force One attack L.A. nuclear attack |
Throughout Day 4, the United States was the target of a coordinated series of terrorist attacks masterminded by Habib Marwan. These included the bombing of a commuter train in Santa Clarita, the kidnapping and trial of Secretary of Defense James Heller, the attempted melting down of six nuclear power plants, the downing of Air Force One, and culminated in the unsuccessful nuclear strike on Los Angeles. The attacks were carried out by a large network of independent sleeper cells, each reporting to Marwan himself. Although the majority of the attacks were thwarted by American military and law enforcement personnel, over 123 were left dead in their wake. Additionally, numerous civilians and federal agents were killed in the lead-ups to the attacks. Marwan himself committed suicide toward the end of the day.
Despite the mixed success of the attacks, their long-term impacts were far-reaching, resulting in a deadly cover-up at a major defense contractor, the ascension of Charles Logan to the presidency, increased belligerence between the U.S. and China, and Jack Bauer's faked death.
Prelude[]
Motives[]
In a prerecorded video intended for release to the public, Habib Marwan stated that the attacks were a response to America's interventionist and "imperialist" foreign policy as well as its people's apathy toward such. Marwan also stated that James Heller's kidnapping was designed to instill fear into the American people of letting their leaders appear in public. ("Day 4: 1:00am-2:00am", "9:00pm-10:00pm")
Planning[]
The room where much of the planning for the attacks took place
The planning for the attacks dated back to nearly five years before Day 4, which was approximately when the Araz family moved to the United States. ("8:00am-9:00am")
Dobson Override[]
Habib Marwan, a longtime employee of McLennen-Forster, was the principal engineer of the Dobson Override, a device commissioned by the Department of Defense. It was designed to remotely take control of a nuclear power plant and shut down its reactor in the event of an emergency. However, Marwan planned to do the opposite with it, which was to take control of every plant in the U.S. and cause its core to melt down, releasing nuclear material into the environment and killing millions.
Merely being in possession of the Override would not be enough to accomplish this; each individual plant was protected by a firewall, and hacking through them all would require massive computer power. So Marwan planted a sleeper agent, Ali, into the IDS Data Systems corporation. He would then use the company's servers to upload viruses to the reactors' firewalls, leaving them vulnerable to manipulation by the Override. In order to prevent the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from detecting such an attack, Marwan needed a means of disguising it. Before the attack on the plants was to commence, Marwan would have one of his cells abduct Secretary of Defense James Heller. Heller would be put on trial for "war crimes" and executed in front of a live feed. This feed would be streamed by millions of computers across the world, serving as a "Trojan horse" for distributing the viruses. ("12:00pm-1:00pm", "5:00pm-6:00pm")
Nuclear warhead[]
This would only be the first part of Marwan's planned wave of terror; his true endgame was to obtain a nuclear warhead and deliver it, by missile, to a major American city. To do this, he would need Section 3 of the Red Chapter from the Nuclear football, which contained the locations and activation codes of all U.S. nuclear warheads. ("3:00am-4:00am", "11:00pm-12:00am")
In order to obtain the Football, Marwan recruited former Air Force pilot turned mercenary Mitch Anderson into his conspiracy. Anderson's mission was to impersonate a USAF pilot, hijack a stealth fighter, and use it to shoot down Air Force One, which was scheduled to land in Los Angeles at 11pm on Day 4. A team, tracking the Football with a transponder embedded in its case, would then move in and retrieve it from the plane's wreckage. In preparation for his mission, Anderson had been training with fellow terrorist Aziz to fly an F-117 Nighthawk, using a flight simulator on his computer. ("10:00pm-11:00pm", "11:00pm-12:00am")
Final preparations[]
Tomas Sherek, now in the U.S.
Three months before Day 4, Tomas Sherek, who would be responsible for overseeing the theft of the Override and James Heller's kidnapping, entered the United States through Mexico, killing the men who helped him cross the border in the process. ("Season 4 Prequel")
For his plan to kidnap James Heller to succeed, Habib Marwan needed to utilize someone close to the Secretary. Marwan tasked two of his operatives, Mandy and Gary, with deceiving Richard Heller into giving away his father's whereabouts.
On the Tuesday before Day 4, at approximately 4am, Richard met the two operatives—posing as average partygoers—at a bar. One of them approached Heller and asked if he wanted to "party." Richard then drove the couple back to his house, where they became intoxicated. Heller began having a one-night stand with Gary, and Mandy used this as an opportunity to place a bug on the former's cellphone, enabling the terrorists to listen in on his calls. They would eventually find out that the Secretary would be paying an off-the-books visit to his son's house at 8am; this was when they planned to execute the kidnapping. ("Day 4: 4:00am-5:00am")
Timeline of the attacks[]
Train bombing and Override theft[]
By the beginning of Day 4, Marwan was ready to initiate the first stage of his operation: to steal the Dobson Override. Using his position at McLennen-Forster, he learned that a courier for the company, Brody, was transporting the Override by way of a commuter train. The leader of one of Marwan's sub-cells, Navi Araz, tasked Tomas Sherek with stealing the device while it was in transit. Sherek and his subordinate Dar planned to derail the train via explosives and retrieve the device from the wreckage.
| Santa Clarita train bombing | |
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| Date: | Day 4: 7:00am PT |
| Location: | Santa Clarita, California |
| Target: | Commuter train |
| Attack type: | Bombing |
| Deaths: | 32+ |
| Perpetrators: | Navi Araz Tomas Sherek (handler) Dar (bomber) |
In Santa Clarita, Dar parked a truck carrying C-4 on a remote railway, creating a collision course with the train. At 7am, the commuter train collided with the truck, resulting in a massive explosion. The train was thrown off the tracks, killing over 32 passengers and injuring many others. Dar, watching the collision from a safe distance, then motorcycled to the crash site. After searching through the wreckage, he found Brody—grievously injured—with the Override handcuffed to his wrist. Dar executed the courier, took the device, and delivered it to Navi Araz. With his assignment complete, Sherek met with Maurice Landstrass, who was to help him escape the country.
CTU Los Angeles was alerted to Tomas Sherek's presence in the U.S., and sent a field team to pick him up. They also picked up chatter of a possible attack on the West Coast at 8am, and mistakenly believed it to be referring to the train bombing that had just happened. However, after being tortured by Jack Bauer, Sherek revealed his primary objective: the Secretary of Defense. ("Day 4: 7:00am-8:00am")
Trial of James Heller[]
Unfortunately, despite Jack's fast-acting torture, he was too late to save Heller; he and his daughter Audrey Raines were kidnapped quickly and effectively by agents of Omar. ("Day 4: 7:00am-8:00am") Raines and Heller were bought to Omar's compound where he kept them under watches, and intended to stream to computers around the world a trial that mocked Heller for his "genocidal, imperialist policies" and execute him.
Omar dispatched Kalil Hasan to make sure that Andrew Paige, a computer engineer who had stumbled on his trail, would be taken care of. Kalil was tailed by Jack Bauer and Ronnie Lobell; while Andrew was saved, Kalil killed Lobell. Jack then tailed Kalil; since he could not pursue Kalil in a way that would prevent Kalil from becoming suspicious while being close enough to see where he was going, he requested Chloe O'Brian to provide satellite coverage. However, since Chloe was unable to get the satellite in time, Jack, unwilling to risk the only lead to Heller's location, posed as a masked armed robber to stall Kalil while waiting for Chloe as Omar made the announcements of the trial to the world. ("Day 4: 8:00am-9:00am")("Day 4: 9:00am-10:00am")
In time, Kalil martyred himself before Jack could pinpoint the compound's location, but with CTU's help he had narrowed it down. President Keeler contemplated taking out Omar's compound in a missile strike; while this would not save Heller, it would prevent him from dying a mockery to the states, and ensure that the terrorists could be taken out with no risk to law enforcement. However, Jack Bauer, with the help of Marines, stormed Omar's route, killed Omar and all of his men, and saved Audrey and Heller, both unharhmed.
"Nuclear holocaust"[]
It later turned out that Omar's broadcast also served as a trojan horse for Marwan to activate the Dobson Override which would allow him to overtake nuclear power plants; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would be able to see the massive data needed to activate the override easily, but Heller's trial masked it and distracted them. Investigating CTU mole Marianne Taylor and defense contractor turned mercenary-terrorist Henry Powell, the at-risk power plants fell from 104 to 6; thanks to the work of Edgar Stiles, all but one of the 6 remaining reactors prevented from melting down, but Marwan escaped the Rockland Building before he could be captured.
Downing of Air Force One[]
While Jack was busy taking down a defense corporation that went so far as to detonate an EMP in downtown LA in order to protect themselves from incrimination (as Marwan was a former employee of theirs), Marwan put the next phase of his plan in mind; use ex-Air Force pilot turned mercenary, Mitch Anderson, to shoot down Air Force One and assassinate John Keeler. Jack attempted to go undercover with Dina Araz at the house of one of Marwan's associates, but the operation went awry when he and Dina were killed and Jack was taken prisoner.
To distract CTU from hitting Anderson (allied with Nicole)'s trail, Marwan distracted CTU by staging a prisoner exchange between Jack and Behrooz Araz. Marwan was cornered at Rafique's Boyle Heights warehouse, but escaped. Ultimately, Jack and the CTU were unable to stop Air Force One; Anderson successfully took out the plane and it's escort jets.
Nuclear strike on Los Angeles[]
Anderson's attack was also a means for Marwan to steal the Nuclear football; he was able to use it to have his Iowa based team of Robert Morrison and Sabir Ardakani to activate the warhead and deliver it by rocket. The team was helped by Chinese freelancer and nuclear scientist, Lee Jong. CTU desperately attempted to hunt down Marwan; Jack failed to apprehend him at AF1's wreckage site, and mercenary Joe Prado led them to The Hub nightclub where Marwan, thanks to an inopportunely timed call for Bauer's arrest by Charles Logan (made president thanks to Anderson's attack), was still able to escape.
After a hitman sent to silence Sabir's girlfriend was fended off by Chloe O'Brian, the location of Sabir's contact, Lee Jong, was discovered. Jack, introducing him to his longest-standing rival and costing him a friend in the process, went so far as to illegally invade the Chinese consulate to kidnap Lee Jong, who was able to inform him of Marwan's location.
Missile launch and final hours[]
As Jack and a CTU Tac Team converged on Marwan's next warehouse, Morrison and Ardakani succeeded in launching the nuclear warhead. Jack urged Marwan to surrender the location and offered him the president's ear, but Marwan stood his ground. Marwan was freed thanks to men he had concealed in the hideout who ambushed the CTU teams escorting him. The missile had stealth technology, so it was impossible to track, and it's target was initially unknown.
With Marwan gone and the missile launched, CTU took to Richard Heller, who (prior to Marwan's escape) was confirmed to be one of the people who called Marwan a week prior. After interrogation, Richard acknowledged that he had recently became friendly with Gary and Mandy, who bugged Heller's phone so that Omar/Marwan could prepare for James and Audrey's capture. Mandy killed Gary and attempted to take Tony Almeida hostage, but she was confronted by Jack who saved Tony. After receiving a Presidential pardon, Mandy surrendered where Marwan would be; he was atop the Global Center and preparing to flee the country from a helicopter.
Jack, Curtis and another CTU field agent converged on the helicopter; Marwan shot out a portable computer he was holding that showed the missle's path. He attempted to leap off of a building railing; Jack caught him, but Marwan cut open Jack's hand forcing Jack to allow Marwan to drop to his death. Re-analysis of Marwan's shot computer let CTU discover that the target of the nuclear attack was Los Angeles; over a million lives were at stake. Thanks to the efforts of Chloe O'Brian and Edgar Stiles, the missile was intercepted and shot down by a marine pilot, bringing Marwan's destructive terrorist plot to a close.
Aftermath[]
Selected fatalities[]
- commuter train passengers (32)
- San Gabriel Island residents (10,000+)
- Air Force One passengers and crew (at least 75, incl. Kevin Keeler)
- possibly John Keeler (unconfirmed)