Americans yesterday remembered the horror of September 11, 2001, and the nearly 3,000 people who died in the hijacked plane attacks as authorities worked to ensure the emotional 10th anniversary was peaceful.
Law enforcement authorities in New York and Washington were on high alert against what was described as a “credible but unconfirmed” threat of an al-Qaeda plot to attack the United States again a decade after the toppling of the World Trade Centre’s twin towers by hijacked airliners.
Security was especially tight in Manhattan, where police set up vehicle checks on city streets as well as bridges and tunnels coming into the city.
President Barack Obama visited the North Memorial Pool, which sits in the footprint of the north tower. Obama walked around the pool hand-in-hand with First Lady Michelle Obama, former President George W Bush and his wife Laura as an eerie silence fell over lower Manhattan which was devoid of traffic and where construction has stopped for the morning.
People gathered near the site, some clutching American flags, to watch a large screen set up to show a remembrance ceremony here. Some wore T-shirts reading, “Never Forget,” a slogan popular since the attacks.
“It was our Pearl Harbour,” said John McGillicuddy, 33, a teacher from Yonkers, New York, getting coffee and carrying two American flags on his way to the World Trade Centre, referring to the Japanese attack that led America to join World War Two.
“Things have gotten better, we are more aware as a country about things going on in the world,” he said.
Family members arrived wearing T-shirts with the faces of the dead, carrying photos, flowers, American flags and other mementos in an overwhelming outpouring of emotion.
The attacks are now such a part of American life that learning about them is part of the school curriculum. This was the first anniversary which included an American president.
The memorial includes two plazas in the shape of the footprints of the Twin Towers with cascading 30 foot (9.1 metres) waterfalls. Around the perimeters of the pools are the names of the victims of the September 11 attacks and an earlier 1993 attack at the Trade Centre.
In the September 11 attacks, 19 men from the Islamic militant group al-Qaeda hijacked airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon outside Washington and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
-With Reuters/The Daily Star input
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