Claims that the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 were orchestrated by US intelligence agencies are "complete nonsense," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told attendees of a youth forum.

­"This is complete nonsense, it is impossible," Putin said on Monday, responding to a question posed by an attendee of the Seliger 2011 youth forum.

"To imagine that US intelligence services did it deliberately, with their own hands, is complete nonsense," the prime minister said. “Only people who do not understand the workings of security agencies can say that. It would be impossible to conceal it.”

Putin added that he could not imagine how "any of the current or former US leaders could have such an idea."

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, skepticism over the official explanation of the 9/11 attacks appears to be on the rise. 9/11 “truth movements,” made up of diverse individuals from around the world, are demanding an independent investigation into those horrific events that changed the course of history.

The International Center for 9/11 Studies, for example, is sponsoring four days of Citizen Hearings in the city of Toronto, Canada with the goal of examining “the best evidence that has been discovered in the ten years since the 9/11 events occurred.”

A group of academics – including Niels Harritt, Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen; Steven Jones, Professor Emeritus from Brigham Young University and Kevin Ryan, former Underwriters Laboratories manager – will be among the participants who hope to persuade the public of the need for another 9/11 investigation.

There will certainly be no shortage of protesters on hand as well to condemn the “conspiracy theorists.”

The events of 9/11 were not only the worst foreign attacks ever to happen on American soil. They also triggered a global “War on Terror,” which led to two full-scale wars among other less clearly defined military operations, and provided the impetus for a robust increase in US military spending (which has leveled off at just below $1 trillion per year).

According to the official version of events, the attacks of 9/11, organized by the now-deceased Al-Qaeda terror master, Osama bin Laden, left almost 3,000 people dead after a group of 19 terrorists hijacked four commercial jets.

The four pirated aircraft crashed into the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center complex in Manhattan, New York, the Pentagon building in Washington, and an open field just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Robert Bridge, RT