It's been 20 years since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001.

The world watched on in horror as four commercial airliners travelling from the northeastern United States to California were hijacked mid-flight by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists.

After they hit their target, both Twin Towers collapsed within an hour and forty-two minutes.

A horrifying 2,977 people were killed and at least 6,000 more were injured.

It is perhaps not too dramatic to say, the world would never be the same again.

Looking back now, our editorial still strikes a chord as both poignant and full of foresight.

This is what our paper said:

This tragic event will affect us all   

Words are hardly adequate to describe the unbelievable horror of what happened yesterday in New York and Washington.

The hijacking of civilian aircraft for suicide attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon opens a new and terrible chapter in the long-running story of international terrorism.

We may never know exactly how many people have died.

And the ordinary man and woman in the street will find it hard to comprehend the fanaticism which drove the attackers to deliberately kill perhaps thousands of ordinary people and die themselves as they did it.

Countless people throughout the world will now worry about the possibility of savage repercussions when the United States identifies those who are responsible.

We can only pray that President Bush and his advisers will not be tempted into knee-jerk reactions. The reverberations from this horror cannot be confined to the US.

Tragically nothing that President Bush does will have any impact on the minds of those who, in the words of Tony Blair yesterday, are so fanatical that they are indifferent to the sanctity of life.

READ MORE: How 9/11 terrorist attack shook county as Wiltshire waited for news of loved ones

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine has denied responsibility for the devastation that was beamed around the world yesterday from Manhattan and Washington, but whatever the truth it's an equally tragic fact that these terrible attacks will not bring about any resolution to the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians.

Insisting that the level of security checks which apply to international flights must now be carried out on passengers boarding all aircraft for internal journeys seems like shutting the stable door after a murderous horse has bolted.

But it must now be done and not just in the US, where hopping on an internal plane has been like catching a bus.

Today our thoughts and prayers are with the thousands of victims of this fanatical outrage. The lives of the families of those who have died and of the people who will be forever scarred can never be the same. Perhaps neither can ours.