WEB DESK
Americans today mark the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed almost 3,000 people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
President Donald Trump is attending a ceremony at the 9/11 memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Near this place, United Airlines Flight 93 had crashed after passengers retook control from the al-Qaida-affiliated terrorists who had hijacked the plane. In the annual presidential proclamation declaring September 11 as Patriot Day, Trump said the “evil acts” did not crush the country’s spirit or its commitment to freedom.
Just outside Washington, Vice President Mike Pence is attending a ceremony at the Pentagon for families of those killed when a hijacked plane crashed into the building.
And in New York, hundreds of survivors and family members of those killed will gather at Ground Zero, where the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center stood before two hijacked commercial flights brought them down.
Twin beams of light will be projected into the sky to memorialize those lost in the attacks.
The hijackings were carried out by 19 men affiliated with al-Qaida. It was the deadliest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor in 1944.