US commemorates 21st anniversary of 9/11 attacks
By Hans Ngala (additional reporting from VOA and History.com)
Today marks 21 years since the terrorist attacks launched on the US by the terrorist group Al-Qaeda headed by Osama bin Laden. Some 3.000 people lost their lives in the attacks of 11 September 2001. The U.S. and its allies responded by launching the Afghanistan war.
US President, Joe Biden will mark the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by delivering remarks and laying a wreath at the Pentagon (the US military headquarters), the White House said Tuesday.
On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and used the planes as missiles, crashing three of them into the World Trade Center. Passengers of one of the airplanes were able to deter the terrorists on their flight from reaching their target of either the White House or the US Capitol and their plane crashed in a field.
The attacks remain the worst terrorist attack ever carried out on US soil and since most of the terrorists were training as pilots in the US at the time, the attacks prompted stringent visa measures for foreign nationals entering the US to train as pilots.
To observe the day and pay tribute to all who lost their lives, the US first lady, Jill Biden, will speak Sunday at the Flight 93 National Memorial Observance in Shanksville,a city in Pennsylvania where one of the 9/11 planes crashed. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband will go to New York City for a commemoration ceremony at the National September 11th Memorial which stands at the site where the World Trade Center used to be. The two towers of the World Trade Center collapsed after the planes crashed into them.
