25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States: ceremonies in New York, Arlington and Shanksville

25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and near Washington in photographs

Author, News Department

Place of work, BBC Russian Service

Published a minute ago

Reading time: 4 min

On September 11, ceremonies were held in New York, in Arlington near Washington, where the Pentagon is located, in Shanksville in Pennsylvania and other places in the United States to mark the 25th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The memorial ceremony in New York, at the memorial on the site of the collapsed World Trade Center towers, took place to the sound of a bell. There were seven blows in total, six of which sounded exactly in those minutes when the planes crashed and fell and the towers collapsed.

The seventh strike was dedicated to those people who died after the terrorist attacks, falling ill due to inhalation of smoke and dust.

In total, 2,977 people and 19 suicide bombers who hijacked planes were killed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The names of the 2,606 people who died in New York's Twin Towers and the airliners that crashed into them are engraved on the parapets of memorial ponds at the site of the tragedy.

344 New York firefighters died in the collapsed towers.

All living US presidents attended the ceremony in New York, except for the current one: George W. Bush, who was president in 2001, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Also in attendance were Vice President J.D. Vance, then- and current New York City mayors Rudy Giuliani and Zohran Mamdani, and US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Howard Lutnick miraculously escaped death that day: he was taking his child to kindergarten. All 658 of his other colleagues at the financial services company Cantor Fitzgerald, including his brother Gary, were killed.

President Donald Trump decided to celebrate the anniversary of September 11 not in his native New York, but near Washington, in Arlington, where the Pentagon is located.

In the building of the US Department of Defense, in the part where the plane crashed, 125 people died. There were 59 people on board the plane.

At dawn, a large US flag was unfurled in that part of the Pentagon that was quickly rebuilt after the terrorist attacks.

Donald Trump, in a speech at a memorial ceremony, linked the 2001 terrorist attacks to the current war with Iran.

“Today we repeat the sacred oath we swore on their behalf a quarter century ago [...] And we salute the service members who are now working to ensure that the world's number one sponsor of terrorism, the Islamic Republic of Iran, never, ever obtains nuclear weapons,” Trump said.

In addition to Trump and his wife Melania, the ceremony at the Pentagon was attended, among others, by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Cain. 25 years ago, young pilot Kane, along with other pilots, patrolled the skies over Washington after the terrorist attacks.

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