U.S. President Donald Trump observed the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, promising that the country would always honour the victims and their families while not refraining from commenting on the current U.S. military campaign in Iran.
It was the second year in a row that Trump marked the day at the Pentagon, located in Arlington, Va., just outside of Washington, D.C. Trump and his wife, Melania, listened as the names of 184 people killed at the fortress-like headquarters after American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked were read out on Friday.
“No one can ever prepare for a day like 9/11, but we can always choose to be the kind of nation the world saw in those days after,” said Trump, after highlighting the examples of first responders and other Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.
But both Trump and Pete Hegseth, his defence secretary, included remarks in their speeches to justify military operations against Iran, which have been ongoing for over six months.
“We salute the service members working right now to ensure the world’s number one sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, will never ever have a nuclear weapon,” said Trump, to a smattering of applause.
Hegseth, meanwhile, was even more expansive and blunt in commenting on the war that began on Feb. 28.
“We’re still sending terrorists where they belong, to hell, and tankers to the bottom of the ocean, where they belong,” he said.
Dignitaries, survivors and their families are gathering in New York to mark 25 years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The site of the former World Trade Centre still conjures powerful emotions for those affected by that day — including some Canadian first responders.
Four commercial airplanes in total were hijacked in the 9/11 attacks claimed by al-Qaeda, which had been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government two years earlier. Two crashed into the World Trade Center complex, felling its twin towers, and another in a field in Shanksville, Pa.
The hijackers of the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, officials concluded, were targeting Washington but prevented from reaching the capital after passengers and crew members stormed the cockpit.
Nearly 3,000 people died overall, including 24 Canadian citizens.
9/11 widow slams U.S. government
Vice-President JD Vance attended the New York observance at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, along with former presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, and a host of New York state and city officials from past and present. Bush was the sitting president on 9/11, whisked from scheduled events in Florida to a secure military base in Nebraska.
Traditionally, there are no political speeches at the New York commemoration, where relatives read all the victims’ names, punctuated with moments of silence at key points in the attack timeline.
After reading the name of her late husband Tom at the 25th anniversary 9/11 ceremony in New York, Terry Strada expresses frustration over yearslong legal battle she’s helped spearhead to hold Saudi Arabia legally liable for the 2001 attacks.
But Terry Strada, national chair of 9/11 Families United, who has spearheaded a yearslong legal campaign to hold Saudi Arabia’s monarchy liable for the attacks, did not adhere to that tradition after reading the name of her deceased husband, Tom.
“How can it be that we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?” she said.
“For 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families,” Strada added.
For the first time, this year’s ceremony was also including a silent moment to honour people who were exposed to the clouds of toxic dust released by the twin towers’ fiery collapse and have since died of cancer and other illnesses.
Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s first Muslim mayor, was an elementary school student in the city on 9/11. He said this week he wants the anniversary to focus on victims’ families, first responders and residents who helped one another after the attacks, which he called a “horrific act of terror.”
The traditional reading of victim names at the Ground Zero concluded just before 1 p.m. ET.
At the Manhattan memorial on Friday, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick wiped away a tear, but also smiled as he looked fondly at the names of Cantor Fitzgerald employees inscribed on the parapets that ring the footprints of the fallen towers. Lutnick was CEO of that investment firm when the attack on the World Trade Center killed 658 of its 960 employees.
Trump administration officials were also attending a ceremony in Shanksville. In addition to the official ceremonies involving the federal government, the milestone anniversary was bringing memorial rituals — wreath-laying, flag-flying, moments of silence, vigils and readings of victims’ names — at events across the the country.
In Canada, a solemn ceremony took place in Newfoundland. Thirty-eight planes carrying more than 6,500 passengers landed in Gander, N.L., as air traffic in North America ground to a halt and planes were rerouted.
The attacks changed North American air travel, prompted new federal surveillance, intelligence-gathering powers and banking regulations, and generated ongoing debate over the balance between security and freedom. The Department of Homeland Security was among the post-9/11 creations.
Al-Qaeda’s deadly attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, shook the world and launched a cycle of war that outlasted its reign as the world’s chief terror network. For The National, Margaret Evans examines al-Qaeda’s decline and resurgence as a global threat.
The U.S.-led global war on terrorism, including invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, flowed from that day. The U.S. military found and killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, but accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed still awaits a trial 23 years after his capture while being detained at a U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Canada, then led by prime minister Jean Chrétien, supported the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan, with 159 Canadian service members and seven civilians dying in the yearslong deployment.
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