
Americans commemorate 20th 9/11 as a new national crisis — the coronavirus pandemic — reconfigured anniversary ceremonies and under a new President- Joe Biden.
As the world completes 20 years of the most heinous attack on United States on September 9, 2001, that killed 2,977 Americans, President Joe Biden has urged unity as his country prepares to remember the victims
In a video released on the eve of the 20th anniversary, he said,
“We honour all those who risked and gave their lives in the minutes, hours, months and years afterwards. No matter how much time has passed, these commemorations bring everything painfully back as if you just got the news a few seconds ago.” “We learned that unity is the one thing that must never break,” he added.
The terror attack has shaped most consequential domestic and foreign policy decisions made by American leadership over the past 2 decades. The anniversary comes a little more than 2 weeks after a suicide bomber in Kabul killed 13 US service members as as the military concluded its withdrawal from Afghanistan.
On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people were killed during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which triggered major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism and defined the presidency of George W. Bush.