The US yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks with solemn services to commemorate the victims of the deadliest terror strikes on US soil, which changed the world forever.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001 when 19 al-Qaeda suicide bombers hijacked four passenger jets, crashing them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
US President Barack Obama observed a moment of silence in the White House residence at 8:46am, which is when the first of four hijacked airplanes slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.
Photo: AFP
Afterward, he addressed a Pentagon memorial service.
The names of the dead were read out in a remembrance service at Ground Zero in New York on the site of the rebuilt trade center.
“This weekend, we honor their memory once more. We stand with the survivors who still bear the scars of that day,” Obama said on Saturday in his weekly address.
“In the face of terrorism, how we respond matters,” he said. “We cannot give in to those who would divide us. We cannot react in ways that erode the fabric of our society.”
The 15th anniversary comes with the US in the midst of a divisive presidential campaign between Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was one of New York states two US senators at the time of the attacks, and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Politicians can attend the New York City service, but have not been allowed to read names or deliver remarks since 2011. Clinton and Trump followed a custom of halting television ads that day.
Organizers of the service planned some additional music and readings to mark the milestone year, but they kept close to what are now traditions: moments of silence and tolling bells, an apolitical atmosphere and the hours-long reading of the names of the dead.
The service, held at the September 11 memorial, paused six times — to mark the moments when each of the two planes hit, when each tower fell, as well as the attack on the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania.
During the ceremony’s first moment of silence at 8:46 am — the time when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the north tower — houses of worship in the city were asked to toll their bells.
Former US president George W. Bush, who was president at the time of the attacks, was scheduled to go to church in Dallas, Texas and then attend the Dallas Cowboys home opener against the New York Giants, where he was to take part in the ceremonial coin toss with two New York police officers who were at Ground Zero on Sept. 11.
The attacks killed 2,753 people in New York, 184 at the Pentagon and 40 on Flight 93 — which was headed toward the US capital until passengers and crew staged a rebellion and the hijackers crashed it.
Financial and other hurdles delayed the redevelopment of the Trade Center site early on, but now the 9/11 museum, three of four planned skyscrapers, an architecturally adventuresome transportation hub and shopping concourse and other features stand at the site.
A design for a long-stalled, US$250 million performing arts center was unveiled on Thursday.
Around the Trade Center, lower Manhattan now has dozens of new hotels and eateries, 60,000 more residents and ever-more visitors than before the attacks.
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