US President Donald Trump marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks on Friday by remembering the nearly 3,000 people killed in the deadliest terror attack on US soil and linking the tragedy to his administration’s ongoing confrontation with Iran.Speaking at the Pentagon, where American Airlines Flight 77 crashed on September 11, 2001, Trump said the attacks had strengthened American resolve and paid tribute to the victims, first responders and service members.“We will never, ever forget,” Trump said. “That’s why we fight today. We don’t have a choice.” “For anyone who lived it, no words can do justice to the anguish of that day,” he added.Further continuing his tribute, the US president said, “We cannot forget that moment of immense and horrible evil that took place in this world, bent on the destruction of all that is good. But this morning, we also remember how America responded to that wickedness. On days like 9/11, we learn what a country is truly made of.”Trump also used the anniversary to defend the US war against Iran, saying American service members were working to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. “We salute our first responders and law enforcement, and we love them,” Trump said. “And 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.”Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also connected the September 11 attacks with the current conflict, saying the US military had “laid waste to the world’s most prolific state sponsor of terrorism” in its war against Iran.“Our warriors have fought an Islamic theocracy that has wished us death for nearly half a century, that cheered on 9/11, a regime that has sponsored terrorist attacks against Americans for decades, killing thousands, including our comrades in Iraq, in Afghanistan,” Hegseth said.
9/11 anniversary : Victims remembered across US
At the Pentagon, Trump and first lady Melania Trump listened as the names of all 184 people killed in the attack on the building were read aloud, with a bell tolling between each name.Trump also recalled individual victims, including a woman who was pregnant with her first child, a family of four travelling to Australia and three sixth-graders on a field trip.In New York, families of victims gathered at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan alongside Vice President JD Vance and four former US presidents. The ceremony began at 8:46 a.m. ET, the moment American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower.Family members then read the names of all 2,977 people killed in the September 11 attacks, along with the six people who died in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Some of those reading the names this year were children who had never met the relatives they lost in the attacks.For the first time, a seventh moment of silence was observed for the thousands of people who have died since 2001 from illnesses linked to the toxic dust released after the attacks.At the Shanksville crash site in Pennsylvania, mourners remembered the 40 passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93, who died after passengers fought back against the hijackers and the plane crashed before reaching its intended target in Washington.The attacks led to the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the broader “war on terror”. They also contributed to a rise in anti-Muslim sentiment and hate crimes against Muslim Americans and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries.The human toll also continued long after September 11. Rescue workers, firefighters, police officers and others who spent weeks or months at Ground Zero were exposed to toxic substances in the air.The New York City Fire Department lost 343 members on September 11. More than 600 additional firefighters, including retired members involved in the rescue effort, have since died from 9/11-related illnesses, according to department figures.At Friday’s New York ceremony, the personal loss remained at the centre of the commemoration. Caroline Ogonowski, whose father John was the captain of Flight 11, brought her newborn son to his grandfather’s grave this year.“My father will never know his grandson. And my son will never know his grandfather,” she said.“We owe it to my father and all the others that we lost on that day to make sure that we continue to teach future generations about what happened, about who these people were, who these heroes were, how our country came together and became stronger because of it,” she added.