America collects on Saturday for the twentieth anniversary of September 11 during ceremonies to pay tribute to the approximately 3,000 dead from the deadliest jihadist attacks in history, which have shaken the society and politics of the United States.
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A solemn ceremony has been held under a clear blue sky since 08:40 (12:40 GMT) at the very impressive memorial in Manhattan, New York, where the destroyed twin towers of the World Trade Center stood until the deadly morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. by the attacks of Al-Qaeda then led by Osama bin Laden.
In the presence of US President Joe Biden, alongside his predecessors Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, a first minute of silence was observed at 8:46 a.m., precisely twenty years after the first plane hijacked by the Islamist commando struck the North Tower.
photo-source position-absolute" itemprop="copyrightHolder"> AFP
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Mike Low, who lost his daughter Sara, flight attendant on this plane, spoke from the memorial stand among the trees of a “soothing place of memory” in front of the two huge pools built in place of the towers binoculars, on the ruins of Ground Zero where new skyscrapers stand today.
For three hours, relatives of the missing read and recalled – often in tears – the names and memories of the 2,977 people who died at the three sites of the attacks (including 2,753 in New York).
The Manhattan ceremony is punctuated by tributes in music – on the flute, on the violin or in song – as with the American star Bruce Springsteen and his “I’ll see you in my dreams” on the acoustic guitar.
Minutes of silence are observed for the collapse of the two WTC towers, the attack on the Pentagon near Washington and the crash of one of the planes in Shanksville, Pa., Where tribute ceremonies are also being held on Saturday. .
In Times Square, in the heart of Manhattan, the economic heart of the world’s leading power, where America’s victories are traditionally celebrated, a brief moment of contemplation took place. Likewise, AFP found, in front of a Brooklyn fire station that had lost 12 firefighters twenty years ago.
Frank Siller, the brother of Stephen, one of the firefighters who died in a WTC tower, went to great lengths to honor his memory. He told AFP that he “walked 537 miles (864 km between Washington and New York) through Shanksville to Ground Zero” to raise funds to support families of victims.
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“America has never forgotten Pearl Harbor, it will never forget September 11,” Siller told AFP.
In fact, according to researchers, the cataclysm of September 11 upset American society and politics and is deeply rooted in the history of the country, like Hiroshima, the landing or the assassination of John Kennedy.
This very special commemoration of September 11, Joe Biden, 78, has undoubtedly prepared many times since his victory in November against Donald Trump, whom he accused of having weakened and fractured America.
In a video message broadcast Friday evening, the Democratic president called for “unity, our greatest strength”.
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His Republican predecessor in return denounced on Saturday “the incompetence” of Mr. Biden, whose management of the chaotic withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan “made him look like an idiot”.
In fact, after eight months in office, the Democrat is widely criticized for the debacle of the end of the military intervention in Afghanistan, Washington having been taken aback by the meteoric advance of the Taliban. In 20 years, the United States has lost 2,500 troops and spent over $ 2 trillion in Afghanistan.
At the end of August, they abandoned the country to Islamic fundamentalists whom they had driven out of Kabul at the end of 2001, accusing them of harboring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was finally killed in 2011 in Pakistan.
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And the attack of August 26, claimed by the Afghan branch of the Islamic State group, which killed 13 young American soldiers at the airport in Kabul – in the middle of an evacuation operation – has ulcerated part of the public opinion. These young women and men in uniform were mostly children on September 11, 2001.
Their death is a reminder that America is experiencing a caesura: between the memory still alive for tens of millions of American adults and a more partial historical awareness for young people born since the 1990s.
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Among the international reactions, the European Union assured that it stood “alongside the United States to defend freedom and compassion against hatred”, in a tweet from the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
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