New York commemorates the 25th anniversary of the devastating September 11, 2001 attacks Friday with a ceremony marked by US President Donald Trump’s absence and right-wing outrage at the attendance of the city’s first Muslim mayor.
Al-Qaeda meanwhile has marked the anniversary by releasing a video showing images of late leader Osama bin Laden and his son Hamza, who Trump said in 2019 had also been killed.
Police commissioner Jessica Tisch said an anti-drone team would be deployed as a precaution, but stressed there was no intelligence of a specific threat to the gathering.
Nineteen Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four planes on that nearly cloudless day in 2001. Two jets slammed into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, causing the iconic 110-story buildings to collapse.
Vice President JD Vance and Trump’s four living predecessors — Republican George W. Beyond those killed on September 11, more than 9,400 other people have died from 9/11-related illnesses, according to the federal program established to provide medical care to those affected.
Bush, who was in office during the attacks, and Democrats Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton — are all expected at the “Ground Zero” site in lower Manhattan. “Memorials like this and discussions about those events are an important part of keeping it alive and understanding how we prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again,” said Robert Kafka, a Chicagoan in his 60s visiting the 9/11 Memorial. “People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air,” Mamdani said Tuesday.
