Seventh bell rung for post-9/11 illness victims as toll exceeds attack deaths
At the 25th anniversary commemoration of the September 11, 2001 attacks on Friday, Terry Strada, national chairperson of 9/11 Families United and widow of Tom Strada, used remarks broadcast live worldwide at the New York memorial to criticise Saudi Arabia and what she characterised as failures by US officials to hold the kingdom accountable.
“You are missed more with each year that passes,” Strada said of her husband. “But how can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?” Her remarks drew applause from the audience.
The majority of the hijackers who carried out the attacks were from Saudi Arabia, and planning was led by al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin-Laden, scion of a prominent Saudi family. Saudi officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks, and in 2004 the 9/11 Commission Report cleared the country of any involvement.
Six bells ring each year on September 11 to mark the exact time of the four plane crashes and the collapse of each of the Twin Towers, each followed by a moment of silence. This year, a seventh bell was rung for the first time to commemorate the thousands who have since died from diseases including cancer linked to dust and smoke from the towers’ collapse. US health officials say illnesses related to dust and smoke from the towers’ collapse have since claimed more than threefold the nearly 3,000 lives lost on the day itself.
Janice Brooks, who had only moved to New York a couple of weeks before the attacks to begin what she calls “the biggest adventure” working for a company on the 84th floor of the South Tower of the World Trade Center, told the BBC she was in the office when the first plane hit the North Tower. While she was evacuating, the second plane hit with “an almighty thud.” Brooks said she heard “one of those horror film screams” as a woman was hit by debris. She looked up and saw a “big gaping hole” where her office should have been.
The United States marked 25 years since the attacks on Friday with ceremonies at the Pentagon, the World Trade Center site in New York, and the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 crashed after passengers fought back against the hijackers. Moments of silence marked the timings of the hijackings and the collapse of the Twin Towers, and the names of nearly 3,000 people who died were read aloud over nearly four hours.
At the New York memorial, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who lost his brother Gary and several colleagues in the attacks, attended alongside Vice-President JD Vance and all four living former US presidents and their first ladies. Former President George W Bush, who was president at the time of the attacks, was joined by former Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at Friday’s ceremony.
At the Pentagon, President Trump attended the commemoration alongside cabinet secretaries and Condoleezza Rice, who, according to BBC, was US Secretary of State on 9/11. “Today we renew the sacred oath that we first swore in their names a quarter of a century ago,” Trump said. “We will never, ever forget. That’s why we fight today.” Trump sought to link the post-9/11 “war on terror,” which sparked years of US involvement in Middle East wars, to his current conflict with Iran, telling the crowd the Islamic Republic “will never, ever have a nuclear weapon.”
Observances extended abroad. In London, a ceremonial event at Buckingham Palace drew Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and US Ambassador Warren Stephens, with further commemorations held at Lloyd’s of London. The Toronto Stock Exchange held an event to remember colleagues who died in the attacks. In Milan, a group of Italian and US firefighters participated in a ceremonial stair climb, climbing 110 floors up and down the Galfa Tower dressed in their uniforms and carrying equipment, in remembrance of the number of storeys on each of the Twin Towers.