[wingnuts'nbolts]

They were surprised! They did not think the towers would collapse. If they had secondary targets they may have not been able to het to them.

[VOA]

They were surprised!

They got another suprise about a month later when bombs started falling.
I remember reading that Osama was still busy with construction/improvements
on his terrorists resort complex in Kandahar when the 9-11 attack occurred.

He never dreamed we'd come after him and his butt-boys.

I suspect that the other suprise is that the US economy (and a lot of the world economy)
didn't just collapse along with the WTC, given all the trading houses that took a hit.
I guess Osama and his buddies know a lot about e-mail and encrypting messages in photo files...
but severely underestimated the resilience of our redundant computer networks serving the
equity and bond markets.