New York is preparing to mark 25 years since the September 11, 2001 attacks, as the city’s solemn anniversary ceremony unfolds without US President Donald Trump and amid right-wing backlash over the presence of its first Muslim mayor.
Rather than attend the event in Lower Manhattan—where hijacked aircraft brought down the World Trade Center and the deadliest toll was recorded among the 2,977 victims—Mr Trump is set to pay his respects at the Pentagon.
Vice President JD Vance is expected at the Ground Zero ceremony, joined by Mr Trump’s four living predecessors: Republican George W Bush, who was in office during the attacks, and Democrats Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Organisers have again opted for a service without speeches. Instead, grieving relatives will read aloud the names of those killed, and a bell will sound at key moments that trace the timeline of the attack.
“Memorials like this, and discussions about those events, are an important part of keeping it alive and understanding how we prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again,” said Robert Kafka, a Chicagoan in his 60s visiting the 9/11 Memorial.
An improvised team of volunteers, firefighters, police and detection dogs found 21 people alive on the first day, but none thereafter
Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani will also attend, placing the city’s first Muslim mayor alongside the former presidents despite a campaign—led by the right-wing New York Post and former mayor Rudy Giuliani—urging him to stay away.
A petition that has amassed more than 100,000 signatures accuses Mr Mamdani of associating with unspecified individuals who are “dismissive of American institutions or insufficiently critical of extremist ideologies.”
“It’s concerning to me that the mayor is being treated differently simply because he is Muslim,” city council member Shahana Hanif told CNN.
Even as the criticism has swirled, Mr Mamdani has recently drawn praise for releasing thousands of documents detailing what city officials knew about air toxicity levels in Lower Manhattan after the attacks.
Following the initial dust cloud from the World Trade Center’s collapse, months of pollution and lingering dust blanketed the area, contributing to cancers that thousands of New Yorkers continue to battle today.
‘Toxic air’
“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air,” Mr Mamdani said.
On that nearly cloudless day in 2001, 19 Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four planes.
Two jets crashed into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, bringing down the iconic 110-story buildings.
A third aircraft hit the Pentagon, and a fourth went down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back.
In addition to those killed on September 11, the federal program created to provide medical care to those affected says more than 9,400 other people have died from 9/11-related illnesses.
343 firefighters lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on the twin towers
About 100 million Americans were not yet born or are too young to remember the events that reshaped the country.
Large crowds are expected in Lower Manhattan for the memorial service.
The Secret Service has put in place a security ring of steel around the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.
Police commissioner Jessica Tisch said an anti-drone team would be deployed as a precaution, while emphasising there was no intelligence pointing to a specific threat to the gathering.
Al-Qaeda has marked the anniversary by releasing a video featuring images of its late leader Osama bin Laden and his son Hamza, who Mr Trump said in 2019 had also been killed.
In the lead-up to the memorial, a drone display sent 2,977 lights into the night sky above New York Harbour—one for each person who died in the attacks.
