US marks 20 years since 9/11 in shadow of Afghan war’s end

NEW YORK (AP) —
Americans solemnly marked the 20th anniversary of 9/11 on Saturday, remembering the dead, invoking the heroes and taking stock of the aftermath of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil less than two weeks after the fraught end of the war in Afghanistan.

The ceremony at ground zero in New York began exactly two decades after the attack started with the first of four hijacked planes crashing into one of the World Trade Center's twin towers.

“It felt like an evil spectre had descended on our world, but it was also a time when many people acted above and beyond the ordinary,” said Mike Low, whose daughter, Sara Low, was a flight attendant on that plane.

Her family has “known unbearable sorrow and disbelief” in the years since, the father told a crowd that included President Joe Biden and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.

But “as we carry these 20 years forward, I find sustenance in a continuing appreciation for all of those who rose to be more than ordinary people,” Low said.

The anniversary unfolded under the pall of a pandemic and in the shadow of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which is now ruled by the same militants who gave safe haven to the 9/11 plotters.

“It's hard because you hoped that this would just be a different time and a different world. But sometimes history starts to repeat itself and not in the best of ways,” Thea Trinidad, who lost her father in the attacks, said before reading victims' names at the ceremony.

Bruce Springsteen and Broadway actor Kelli O'Hara sang at the commemoration, but by tradition, no politicians spoke there. In a video released Friday night, Biden addressed the continuing pain of loss but also spotlighted what he called the “central lesson” of Sept. 11: “that at our most vulnerable ... unity is our greatest strength.”

Biden was also scheduled to pay respects at the two other sites where the 9/11 conspirators crashed the jets: the Pentagon and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Together, the attacks killed nearly 3,000 people.

Calvin Wilson came to the Pennsylvania memorial to reflect on his brother-in-law LeRoy Homer, the first officer of the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers and crew fought to regain control. Hijackers are believed to have been targeting the U.S. Capitol or the White House.

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