New York marks 25th anniversary of 9/11 attacks

New York observed the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on Friday with a ceremony clouded by disagreement over President Donald Trump’s absence and criticism towards the presence of the city’s inaugural Muslim mayor. In a surprising decision, Trump attended the Pentagon instead of joining the event in New York, where the World Trade Center was destroyed by hijacked airplanes, resulting in the deaths of most of the 2,977 victims on that fateful day.

Vice President Kamala Harris and four of Trump’s surviving predecessors — Republican George W. Bush, who was in office at the time of the attacks, and Democrats Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton — convened at the Ground Zero site in lower Manhattan. The ceremony, which commenced just after 8:40am (5:40pm PKT), was intended to be non-political, with no speeches.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former US presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton, along with Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani, were among the attendees. Bereaved relatives recited the names of all those who perished, tolling a bell to commemorate significant events of the attack that triggered years of US involvement in Middle Eastern conflicts and sparked controversy over Washington’s human rights record.

Robert Kafka, a Chicago resident in his 60s visiting the 9/11 Memorial, emphasized the importance of memorials like these and discussions about such events in maintaining memory and preventing similar tragedies. Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, faced organized opposition urging him to decline the invitation, led by the right-wing New York Post and Trump ally Rudy Giuliani.

A petition with over 100,000 signatures accused Mamdani of associating with individuals who are "dismissive of American institutions or insufficiently critical of extremist ideologies." Mamdani’s decision to attend garnered praise for her recent revelation of thousands of documents exposing the city’s knowledge of toxicity levels in Lower Manhattan following the attacks.

These pollutants led to various cancers affecting thousands of New Yorkers to this day. The 9/11 attacks saw Al-Qaeda operatives hijack four airliners; two struck the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, the third hit the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers resisted. Over 9,400 additional deaths have been attributed to 9/11-related illnesses, with more than 100 million Americans either born after or too young to recall the harrowing day.

Logan Miller, 32, whose uncle died in the attacks and whose grandfather succumbed to 9/11-related illnesses, noted that the younger generation struggles to comprehend the impact of the event and asks more questions. The ceremony was expected to draw large crowds, prompting the Secret Service to establish a security perimeter around the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

City police Commissioner Jessica Tisch announced an anti-drone team would be deployed as a precaution, although she stressed there was no intelligence suggesting a specific threat.