United States marks 15th anniversary of 9/11

The United States marks the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on Sunday with solemn services to commemorate the victims of the deadliest terror strikes on US soil, which changed the world forever.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001 when 19 Al-Qaeda suicide bombers hijacked four passenger jets, crashing them into the Twin Towers in New York, the Pentagon in Washington and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

It was the first foreign attack on the US mainland in almost two centuries and sparked US-led invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003, where war rages on more than a decade later.

Countries in the Middle East from Libya to Syria are engulfed in war, providing a fertile ground for Al-Qaeda affiliates to breed, and Europe has been tormented by attacks inspired by the Islamic State group.

The names of the dead will be read out in a remembrance service at Ground Zero in New York on the site of the rebuilt World Trade Center, and President Barack Obama will address a ceremony at the Pentagon.

"This weekend, we honor their memory once more. We stand with the survivors who still bear the scars of that day," Obama said Saturday in his weekly address...
 AFP/ahram.org.eg
11/9/16
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