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Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and other officials watch as the US flag is unfurled at the Pentagon, September 11, 2026
THE United States marked the 25th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon today, remembering the shock, the dead and the sweeping consequences of the al-Qaida strikes on symbols of US might and prosperity.
Today’s milestone anniversary of the attacks, widely referred to as 9/11, included memorial rituals such as wreath-laying, flag-flying, moments of silence, vigils and readings of victims’ names.
On September 11, 2001, al-Qaida extremists hijacked four commercial jets and crashed three of them into New York’s World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
The fourth plane went down in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew members stormed the cockpit and fought the hijackers.
“In the course of history, there are a few moments that divide time into, really, what came before” and after, President Donald Trump said at a 9/11 remembrance event in Washington this week.
All living former US presidents, Joe Biden, George W Bush and Barack Obama, attended the memorial in New York, while President Trump attended the ceremony at the Pentagon.
Vice President JD Vance represented the Trump administration at the New York memorial, while other senior White House officials headed to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania.
The attacks of September 2001 became the pretext for a new era of US-led intervention. Twenty-five years on, millions are dead and the promised ‘victories’ remain nowhere to be seen, says ANDREW MURRAY
Mask-off outbursts by Maga insiders and most strikingly, the destruction and reconstruction of the presidential seat, with a huge new $300m ballroom, means Trump isn’t planning to leave the White House when his term ends, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER