9-11 attacks: “We commemorate the 2,977 lives we lost and honor those who risked and gave their lives. As we saw in the days that followed, unity is our greatest strength”, Prez Joe Biden said in the video message.
New Delhi: A video message was released by US President Joe Biden on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, in which he said unity is “our greatest strength”.
“For me, that is the central lesson of September 11. It is to our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of all that makes us human, in the battle for America’s soul, unity is our greatest strength, ”Biden said in a six-minute message.
“Unity doesn’t mean we have to believe the same, but we have to have fundamental respect and faith in each other and in this nation,” Biden says in his video.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will stop at each of the sites of the attacks on Saturday to “honor and commemorate the lives lost,” the White House said according to an AFP report.
On September 11, 2001, an airliner crashed into one of the two 110-storey World Trade Center towers in New York’s Lower Manhattan business district. Before people could get over the shock, another fuel-laden plane flew into the other tower. Soon the Twin Towers collapsed, killing scores of people and injuring scores of people.
Followed by the Pentagon attack, when an airliner entered the superpower’s military nerve center side, killing 184 people on the plane and on the ground.
That was not all, another plane crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa. After passengers retaliated, sending United 93 back before reaching its target, likely the United States Capitol in Washington.
Commemorations will take place on Saturday at each of the three sites where 19 Al Qaeda hijackers, mostly from Saudi Arabia, crashed crowded airliners.
According to an AFP report, at Ground Zero in New York, relatives will read the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed, during a four-hour service starting at 8:30 am (12:30 pm GMT). Six moments of silence will be observed, corresponding to the times when the two World Trade Center towers were struck and fallen, and the times when the Pentagon was attacked and Flight 93 crashed.
But the hasty withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan seems to overshadow a sense of closure. Biden has been criticized for his handling of the withdrawal and the fight to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, is not expected to speak in public at the ceremonies, AFP reported.
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