From left, former President Bill Clinton, former First Lady Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, President Joe Bien, First Lady Jill Biden, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Bloomberg's partner Diana Taylor, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) stand for the national anthem during the annual 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum on Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021 in New York. (Photo: AP)9/11 20 years anniversary highlights and news updates: As the world completed 20 years of the worst attack on United States on September 11, 2001, that killed 2,977 Americans, tributes poured in for the 9/11 ‘heroes’ and victims from several quarters on Saturday.
Taking to Twitter, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that while the terror threat may not have been eliminated, 9/11 terrorists failed to shake belief in democracy. “That we are coming together today — in sorrow but also in faith and resolve — demonstrates the failure of terrorism,” he added. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II also offered her condolences to the victims, survivors and families affected by the attacks 20 years ago.
Lauding the “heroes” of 9/11 — and of the years since — former US President Barack Obama said: “One thing that became clear on 9/11 –and has been clear ever since — is that America has always been home to heroes who run towards danger in order to do what is right.” (See rare photos of 9/11 attack)
Fire and smoke billows from the north tower of New York's World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 after terrorists crashed two hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and brought down the twin towers. (AP)
As the world marks 20 years of the horrific 9/11 terror attacks, a ticket agent at the Washington area airport who checked-in two of the al-Qaeda hijackers says he has blamed himself all these years and lived the thought of what could have happened "if I had done something different".
A report by ABC News said that Vaughn Allex, an American Airlines ticket agent at Dulles International Airport on September 11, 2001, "will never forget the faces of two of the 9/11 hijackers. He looked them in the eye that morning and asked who packed their luggage".
Salem and Nawa Al-Hazmi had run into the terminal and appeared lost as they approached Allex's counter. Even though they were late, Allex ensured they boarded Flight 77 since they had two full-fare, first-class tickets. --PTI
As the world completes 20 years of the worst attack on the United States on September 9, 2001, that killed 2,977 Americans, many comemoration events are being held across the US. Here are some glimpse of those.
See more photos of 9/11 anniversary events here
From left, former President Bill Clinton, former First Lady Hillary Clinton, former President Barack Obama, former First Lady Michelle Obama, President Joe Bien, First Lady Jill Biden, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Bloomberg's partner Diana Taylor, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) stand for the national anthem during the annual 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum on Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021 in New York. (Photo: AP)
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II offered her condolences to the victims, survivors and families affected by the attacks 20 years ago.
In a message to Joe Biden, she remembered the “terrible attacks” on New York and Washington, D.C.“My thoughts and prayers — and those of my family and the entire nation — remain with the victims, survivors and families affected, as well as the first responders and rescue workers called to duty,” AP quoted Queen Elizabeth II as saying.
A bell chimes at the World Trade Center, signaling the start of commemorations marking 20 years since the 9/11 attacks.
hree presidents and their wives stood somberly side by side at the National September 11 Memorial, sharing a moment of silence to mark the anniversary of the nation's worst terror attack with a display of unity. Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton all gathered at the site where the World Trade Center towers fell two decades ago.
They each wore blue ribbons and held their hands over their hearts as a procession marched a flag through the memorial, watched by hundreds of Americans gathered for the remembrance, some carrying photos of loved ones lost in the attacks. Before the event began, a jet flew overhead in an eerie echo of the attacks, drawing a glance from Biden toward the sky. --AP
US Vice President Kamala Harris will honour the lives lost and heroism of United Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Saturday in her remarks, reports CNN.
President Joe Biden is making an appeal for the nation to reclaim the spirit of cooperation that sprung up in the days following the 9/11 terror attacks as he commemorates those who died 20 years ago. Biden was a senator when hijackers took four planes and exacted the nation’s worst terror attack in 2001. Now he marks the 9/11 anniversary for the first time as commander in chief.
The president planned to pay his respects at the trio of sites where the planes crashed, but he was leaving the speech-making to others.
Instead, the White House released a taped address late Friday in which Biden spoke of the “true sense of national unity” that emerged after the attacks, seen in “heroism everywhere” in places expected and unexpected.” “To me that’s the central lesson of September 11,” he said. “Unity is our greatest strength.” --AP
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First moment of silence held in New York is to mark the time the first of the Twin Towers was struck that morning, at 08:46 local time, on September 11, 2001.
Lauding the "heroes" of 9/11 and of the years since, former US President Barack Obama said: "One thing that became clear on 9/11 --and has been clear ever since -- is that America has always been home to heroes who run towards danger in order to do what is right."
South Korean President Moon Jae-in expressed his "deepest sympathies" to US President Joe Biden and the Americans marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He said South Korea as a key ally will continue supporting US efforts in eliminating terrorism. s to fight terrorism. In a message posted on Twitter and Facebook, Moon said: "Shock of that day still remains as deep wounds in the hearts of so many" and that "no violence can win against peace and inclusiveness".
Terming the 9/11 terror attack an assault on humanity, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday asserted that a permanent solution to such tragedies can be found in human values. He said that on the same day in 1893, Swami Vivekananda had introduced to the world the human values of India during his address at the Parliament of World's Religion in Chicago.Modi's statements come on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and amid the developments in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has taken control of the country."Today is September 11, that is 9/11, a date in the history of the world that is also known for attacks on humanity. But this same date also taught a lot to the whole world," Modi said after inaugurating via video conference the Sardardham Bhavan in Ahmedabad to provide residential and other facilities to students and job aspirants, and also performed the 'bhoomi pujan' of Sardardham Phase-II Kanya Chhatralaya, a girls' hostel. Read more
The terrorists behind execution of the 9/11 attacks in the United States failed to shake the belief of people in freedom and democracy, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Saturday, as the world marked twenty years of the terror strikes. Taking to Twitter, Johnson said that while the terror threat may not have vanished, people have refused to live in "permanent fear". "Today we remember the 2,977 people taken from us on September 11th 2001," Johnson said in his video message posted on the micro-blogging platform. "But while the terrorists imposed their burden of grief and suffering, we can now say with the perspective of 20 years that they failed to shake our belief in freedom and democracy," he said.
The unprecedented acts of terror on 9/11, when death literally fell from the sky, were ostensibly motivated by an impulse to revenge and restoration. The perpetrators who carried it out sought to teach a lesson to the West, and re-position their version of Islam as a powerful political force. But like a blast whose reverberations fly in all directions, the deepest impulses behind the attack were less strategic and more apocalyptic. They set in motion two crises that are still with us.
The first was the crisis of the West. It is often said that more than 9/11, it was the overreaction and response to 9/11 that shaped its meaning. There is a great deal of truth to that: 9/11 became the pretext to start two wars, put in motion the perpetual war machine, legitimise unaccountable exercise of executive power, institute the surveillance state, provide mendacious justifications for torture and reinstate the idea that civilian casualties could be counted as mere collateral damage. (Read Pratap Bhanu Mehta's opinion piece here)
The Saudi Arabia of today is far different from the Saudi Arabia of Sept. 11, 2001. All but four of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi citizens, and the Saudi kingdom was the birthplace of Osama bin Laden, the head of al-Qaida and mastermind of the attack 20 years ago. In the two decades since then, Saudi Arabia has confronted al-Qaida on its own soil, revamped its textbooks, worked to curb terror financing and partnered with the United States to counter terrorism.
It wasn't until the last five years, though, that the kingdom began backing away from the religious ideology upon which it was founded and which it espoused within and outside its borders Wahhabism, a strict interpretation of Islam that helped spawn generations of mujahedeen.
The sight of the burning towers from September 11, 2001, remains seared in public memory, even two decades after the ghastly terrorist attack. The events of 9/11 marked both a culmination of old as well as an inception of new geo-strategic currents.
India had been besieged by a Pakistan-sponsored terrorist insurgency in Kashmir since 1989. The Islamic terror wave, however, simply wasn’t treated with the seriousness it merited internationally. While India wrestled with terrorism, leaders of the Western power bloc such as the US and UK — closely allied as they were with Pakistan, the ultimate perpetrator of cross-border terror — conveniently underplayed the issue. Read Rajeev Mantri's opinion piece here.
Twenty years after terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center, the memorial at ground zero has its own routine, not much different from many city tourist sites. Visitors from around the world come and go. They snap selfies as they browse the nearly 3,000 names engraved into the parapets that frame two reflecting pools. Docents give tours. Tourists glance at their watches, decipher subway maps and check off a box.
Then they leave. But for those who live and work close to the memorial, the site is both a part of their daily routine and hallowed ground. The names on the parapets are more than mere engravings on bronze, and the 55,000 gallons of water recycling through the reflecting pools is more than a social media post. It is a constant reminder of that infamous day. It is a cemetery. (AP)
That September night, Roselle, the yellow Labrador, woke up, shivering and yelping in fear. Like always, she had sensed that a thunderstorm was brewing, and her owner, Michael Hingson, had to take her down the stairs to his basement to shield her under his desk.
Hours later, the guide dog would help Hingson, who was born blind, walk down the stairs to safety from the 78th floor of the rapidly disintegrating World Trade Centre (WTC) in New York, minutes after terror outfit Al Qaeda crash-landed a plane, American Airlines Flight 11, through tower 1 (North Tower). Seventeen minutes later, there would be another plane, United Airlines Flight 175, that would crash into the South Tower.
Some 2,750 people died in New York and thousands were injured, the repercussions of that attack rippling across nations over the decades. Read the full report here.
As the world marks the sombre occasion of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the United Nations remembers the solidarity, unity and resolve expressed two decades ago by the international community for a future without terrorism, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said.
"Today we mark a sombre day seared in the minds of millions of people around the world. A day when nearly 3,000 lives from over 90 countries were taken by terrorists in cowardly and heinous attacks in the United States of America. Thousands more were injured," Guterres said on Friday in his message on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The attacks, which were planned by al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, saw four US passenger jets seized by suicide attackers - two of which were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York.