There are many reasons people here said they believed that the attacks of 9/11 were part of a conspiracy against Muslims. Some had nothing to do with Western actions, and some had everything to do with Western policies.

Again and again, people said they simply did not believe that a group of Arabs — like themselves — could possibly have waged such a successful operation against a superpower like the US. But they also said that Washington’s post-9/11 foreign policy proved that the US and Israel were behind the attacks, especially with the invasion of Iraq.

The rumours that spread shortly after 9/11 have been passed on so often that people no longer know where or when they first heard them.