{"id":223871,"date":"2026-09-12T03:29:30","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T03:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/never-ever-forget-america-marks-25th-anniversary-of-9-11-attacks-bbc-com\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T03:29:30","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T03:29:30","slug":"never-ever-forget-america-marks-25th-anniversary-of-9-11-attacks-bbc-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/never-ever-forget-america-marks-25th-anniversary-of-9-11-attacks-bbc-com\/","title":{"rendered":"&#039;Never, ever forget&#039; &#8211; America marks 25th anniversary of 9\/11 attacks &#8211; bbc.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Twenty-five years after 9\/11, US presidents past and present have commemorated the lives lost when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.<br \/>President Donald Trump led a Pentagon ceremony, while US Vice-President JD Vance attended a memorial at the site of the World Trade Center in New York, along with all four living former US presidents and first ladies.<br \/>Moments of silence were held to mark the timings of the attacks and the names of nearly 3,000 people who died were read out. <br \/>Two beams of light illuminated the Manhattan sky for a Tribute in Light on Friday evening, as other landmarks in the state lit up in blue in commemoration.<br \/>George W Bush, who was president at the time of the attacks, was joined by former Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at Friday&#x27;s ceremony at the  World Trade Center site. <br \/>At the Pentagon, President Trump attended a commemoration alongside cabinet secretaries and Condoleezza Rice, who was national security adviser on 9\/11.<br \/>&quot;Today we renew the sacred oath that we first swore in their names a quarter of a century ago,&quot; Trump said. &quot;We will never, ever forget. That&#x27;s why we fight today.&quot;<br \/>He sought to link the &quot;war on terror&quot; that followed 9\/11, which sparked years of US involvement in Middle East wars, with his current conflict in Iran.<br \/>Trump told the crowd that the Islamic Republic &quot;will never, ever have a nuclear weapon&quot;.<br \/>Commemorations were also held in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 crashed after passengers fought back against the hijackers.<br \/>Janice Brooks had only moved to New York a couple of weeks before 9\/11 to begin what she calls &quot;the biggest adventure&quot;, working for a company on the 84th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center.<br \/>She told the BBC she was in the office when the first plane hit the North Tower. While she was evacuating, the second plane hit with an &quot;almighty thud&quot;.<br \/>Brooks said she heard &quot;one of those horror film screams&quot; as a woman was hit by debris. She looked up and saw a &quot;big gaping hole&quot; where her office should have been.<br \/>Every year on 11 September, bells ring to commemorate the exact time that each of the four planes crashed, and the exact time the Twin Towers fell.<br \/>Each of the six bells is followed by a moment of silence.<br \/>This year, a seventh bell was rung to commemorate the thousands who died from diseases including cancer after the attacks.<br \/>Illnesses related to dust and smoke from the towers&#x27; collapse have since claimed more than threefold the nearly 3,000 lives lost in the attacks, US health officials say.<br \/>As the names of the dead were read out for nearly four hours at the ceremony in Manhattan, a 9\/11 widow criticised Saudi Arabia and what she characterised as failures by US officials to hold the kingdom accountable.<br \/>&quot;You are missed more with each year that passes,&quot; Terry Strada said of her husband Tom Strada in remarks broadcast live worldwide. <br \/>&quot;But how can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?&quot;<br \/>The comments by Strada, national chairperson of 9\/11 Families United, drew applause from the audience.<br \/>The majority of those who carried out the 9\/11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia and planning was led by al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin-Laden, scion of a prominent Saudi family.<br \/>But Saudi officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks, and in 2004 the 9\/11 Commission Report &quot;found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded&quot; al-Qaeda. <br \/>Events were also held elsewhere to honour the victims. In London, there was a ceremonial event at Buckingham Palace attended by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and the US ambassador Warren Stephens.<br \/>The Toronto Stock Exchange also held an event to remember colleagues who died in the attacks.<br \/>In Gander, Newfoundland, the US ambassador to Canada praised the small town that took in thousands of passengers from 38 diverted planes in the hours after the attack.<br \/>&quot;When people in America hear the word Gander, our hearts soften,&quot; Pete Hoekstra said.<br \/>&quot;As a representative of the United States government, thank you for your friendship&#8230; to the nation of Canada, thank you for being a partner and for the shared sacrifices that you made with us.&quot;<br \/>His remarks come amid fraught relations between the US and Canada, with the two countries engaged in a trade war. Ahead of the 9\/11 commemorations, some Gander residents had <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cm27vpe7z7lo\" class=\"LinkUrl-styles__LinkUrlStyled-sc-f4e3b82f-0 eGAhOs\">called for Hoekstra&#x27;s invite to be rescinded.<\/a><br \/>Still, Hoekstra&#x27;s speech was met with applause. But in separate remarks afterwards, former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chr\u00e9tien said: &quot;I have message for American friends&#8230; never mistake our generosity for weakness.&quot; He received a standing ovation. <br \/>In Milan, a group of Italian and US firefighters participated in a ceremonial stair climb to honour the emergency responders who died in the line of duty. <br \/>Dressed in their uniforms and carrying equipment, they climbed 110 floors up and down the Galfa Tower, in remembrance of the number of storeys on each of the Twin Towers.<br \/>Tasia Fortune&#x27;s body was found  in the lot of an abandoned home in Mississippi in August. <br \/>Glutathione, an antioxidant, has been offered as a treatment at some of the largest US wildfires in recent years.<br \/>She fled to Texas where abortions are illegal and now wants custody of the four-week-old baby. <br \/>They carry distinct memories not from the day itself, but from the moment  &#8211; years later &#8211; they learned about the attacks.<br \/>At the Pentagon 9\/11 commemorations, President Trump praised the military and highlighted how their work is continuing with the war in Iran.<br \/>Copyright 2026 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.\u00a0<a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/editorialguidelines\/guidance\/links-and-feeds\" class=\"LinkUrl-styles__LinkUrlStyled-sc-f4e3b82f-0 eGAhOs\"><b id=\"read-about-our-approach-to-external-linking.\" class=\"TextFragment-styles__TextFragmentStyled-sc-99e7c69b-0 fa-DACi\">Read about our approach to external linking.<\/b><\/a><br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/rss\/articles\/CBMiWkFVX3lxTE9IZW9kX3BtWXJHQ2wyN2VIR0Vsa3ExbkVaeHNqbDZoZUs4bHllUlg2ZU1GNVAzTXpQN0loRDg0cjQ4VUd6VEdqSE8tYkNhaUIzeExBQzBzVFR3UQ?oc=5\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Twenty-five years after 9\/11, US presidents past and present have commemorated the lives lost when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.President Donald Trump led a Pentagon ceremony, while US Vice-President JD Vance attended a memorial at the site of the World Trade Center in New York, along [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":223872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}