US remembers 9/11 - Still haunted by Bin Laden

by AFP

posted 09/11/07

NEW YORK (AFP) — The United States marked the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks Tuesday with solemn ceremonies but still haunted by Osama bin Laden, who used the anniversary to praise the hijackers who carried out the attacks.

In an overcast New York, families of the 2,749 people killed when two planes plowed into the World Trade Center twin towers paid their respects near the site as rescue workers read the names of the dead, in what has now become an annual ritual. With heads bowed, holding photographs of the dead and fighting to hold back the tears, relatives listened as the grim roll call was read out.

"We come together again as New Yorkers and as Americans to share a loss that can't be measured and to remember the names of those who can't be replaced," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, opening the commemorations. The day of the attacks six years ago was "a day that tore across our history and our hearts," he said.

As in previous years, Al-Qaeda leader bin Laden used the anniversary to release two videotapes, mocking the United States, threatening to escalate the unpopular war in Iraq and praising hijacker Walid al-Shehri as a "champion."

Shehri was on American Airlines Flight 11, the first jet to crash into the World Trade Center in New York. The video also featured Shehri, in the sixth such last will and testament issued by one of the 19 hijackers on September 11, 2001. Shehri was "a young man who personally penetrated the most extreme degrees of danger and is a rarity among men: one of the 19 champions," a US-based monitoring group that obtained the video quoted bin Laden as saying. The militant Islamist leader remains at large and is believed to be hiding in the mountainous region straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where hijackers brought down United Airlines Flight 93 in a field after a passenger uprising, tributes were held to honor the 40 passengers and crew killed there.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates meanwhile led a ceremony in Washington for the 184 people killed when American Airlines Flight 77 flew into the Pentagon. "The enemies of America -- the enemies of our values -- will never again rest easily for we will hunt them down relentlessly and without reservations," Gates said at the ceremony.

The Defense Department at the weekend honored the dead and showed support for US troops, more than 4,100 of whom have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since Bush declared a "war on terror" in response to the attacks. White House spokesman Tony Snow said that Washington was still intent on capturing bin Laden, but said the war on terror was "not a war against one guy, Osama bin Laden. It is against a network."

The centerpiece of the commemorations in New York was more muted than in past years. Last year, President George W. Bush laid a wreath at Ground Zero but this year attended a private memorial service and observed a moment of silence in Washington. For the first time, most of the New York commemorations were being held at a park near Ground Zero, the area where the Twin Towers once stood, and not on the site itself, where several new buildings are under construction.

The reading of the names paused for four moments of silence to mark the exact times that the planes hit the towers and when the massive buildings collapsed into piles of rubble and choking dust. "We love you and we miss you," said one woman, mourning the loss of her brother. "You're still the best, Salvatore," added another, paying tribute to his fallen firefighter brother. "We miss her and love her more than ever," three children said of their mother, a worker in one of the collapsed towers. "Michael you are our angel," added another of a firefighter friend. "God bless you."

Relatives of those killed then descended a ramp into the World Trade Center site, where they laid flowers and photographs in a small pool. The blustery and rainy weather contrasted to the clear blue skies on the day of the attacks. The decision not to hold the ceremony at Ground Zero was a controversial one, but Bloomberg said Tuesday that people needed to accept change. "The place where we used to hold this ceremony is now a construction site. This is probably the last year people will be able to walk down the ramp into the pit," dubbed Ground Zero Bloomberg told CNN ahead of the ceremony.

His predecessor, Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph Giuliani, also gave a reading. His presence at the ceremony had sparked criticism from some of the families of those killed, given his presidential ambitions. Giuliani has made much of his role as mayor in the aftermath of the attacks, but firefighters especially have criticized the city's response to the disaster and have accused Giuliani of making political capital out of the attacks.

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, a New York senator, also attended the ceremony. In the evening, a "Tribute in Light" was to project two massive beams of light into the night sky above Ground Zero to symbolize the collapsed towers.

And in a poignant reminder of the reality of the post-September 11 age, Turkish police defused a bomb in Ankara, while security was tightened at a US military base in Germany in response to a bomb threat.