US marks 25 years since 9/11 attacks as Trump skips New York ceremony

The United States on Friday marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks with a solemn ceremony in New York, where President Donald Trump’s absence drew criticism from relatives of victims.

Trump instead paid his respects at the Pentagon, rather than attending the main ceremony in New York, where hijacked planes destroyed the World Trade Center and most of the 2,977 victims were killed.

The Republican president sought to connect the ‘war on terror’ that followed the attacks, and years of US involvement in Middle Eastern wars, with the current conflict in Iran.

‘Today we renew the sacred oath that we first swore in their names a quarter of a century ago. We will never, ever forget. That’s why we fight today,’ AFP quoted Trump as saying.

‘We don’t have a choice. There can only be victory. We fight hard. We fight to win,’ he added.

Vice President JD Vance and Trump’s four living predecessors — Republican George W. Bush, who was president at the time of the attacks, and Democrats Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — attended the ceremony at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan.

A large crowd gathered for the sombre annual event, which began shortly after 8:40am (1240 GMT) and retraced the events of September 11 minute by minute.

As in previous years, the names of those killed were read out, while a bell was rung to mark key moments in the attacks.

The ceremony is generally apolitical and does not feature speeches.

In New York, Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim leader, attended the Ground Zero ceremony despite a campaign urging him to stay away.

The campaign was led by the right-wing New York Post and former mayor and Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, who guided the city through the crisis and was also present on Friday.

A petition supporting the campaign had gathered more than 100,000 signatures. It accused Mamdani of associating with unspecified individuals who were ‘dismissive of American institutions or insufficiently critical of extremist ideologies’.

Mamdani had received praise for recently making public thousands of documents showing what city officials knew about toxicity levels in the air in lower Manhattan following the attacks.

After the World Trade Center collapsed, an initial cloud of dust was followed by months of pollution and lingering dust, causing cancers from which thousands of New Yorkers continue to suffer.

‘It’s up to us’

Nineteen Al Qaeda operatives hijacked four airliners on a nearly cloudless autumn day in 2001.

Two of the planes crashed into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, causing the iconic skyscrapers to collapse.

A third aircraft struck the Pentagon, while a fourth, believed to have been heading towards Congress or the White House, crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back.

Around 100 million Americans have been born since the attacks or were too young to remember the traumatic day.

Retired New York firefighter John Fila said his firehouse lost 15 members in the attacks.

‘In our firehouse there’s the picture of the 15 that we lost. (New firefighters) see that but it’s up to us… to explain those firefighters’ lives and what they were doing that day,’ AFP quoted him as saying.

Al Qaeda also marked the anniversary by releasing a video showing images of the late Osama bin Laden and his son Hamza, whom Trump said in 2019 had also been killed.