Today, Sunday, Americans remembered 9/11 with tributes and tributes twenty-one years after the deadliest terrorist attack ever experienced on American soil.
By tradition, no political figure speaks at the ground zero ceremony. Instead, the celebration focuses on relatives reading aloud the names of the dead.
Bonita Mentis, who wore a necklace with a photo of her murdered sister, Shevonne Mentis, spoke on the spot. “21 years have passed, but it is not 21 years for us. It feels like yesterday,” she said before reading the names of the victims at the World Trade Center to a crowd that included Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff.
At the Pentagon, which was also the target of 9/11, President Joe Biden promised that the United States would continue to work to eradicate acts of terrorism and called on Americans to defend “the very democracy that guarantees the right to liberty and that those terrorists wanted.” bury in fire, smoke and ashes”.
First lady Jill Biden spoke at the third site of the attack, a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
On September 11, 2001, conspirators from the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda seized control of planes to use as passenger-laden missiles, hitting the Twin Towers of the Trade Center and the Pentagon. The fourth plane was headed to Washington but crashed near Shanksville after crew members and passengers tried to control the terrorists.
The attacks cost the lives of nearly 3,000 people, reshaped national security policy and launched America’s war on terror around the world.
Sunday’s commemorations came just over a month after a US drone strike killed a key al Qaeda figure who helped plan the 9/11 attacks: Ayman al-Zawahri.
The self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, is still awaiting a long-postponed military court.
The 9/11 attacks temporarily sparked a sense of unity and national pride for many, while subjecting Muslim Americans to years of suspicion and sparking debate about the balance between security and civil liberties.
In many ways, the aftermath of 9/11 reverberates through American politics and public life to this day.
