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Monday 12 SepteMber 2022

9/11 terror attacks reverberate as U.S. marks 21st anniversary

Continued from Front lid Shaikh Mohammed, still after 9/11,” said Shah.
awaits a long-postponed Readers often add person-
On Sept. 11, 2001, conspira- military tribunal. An attor- al remarks that form an al-
tors from the al-Qaida Mus- ney for one of Moham- loy of American sentiments
lim militant group seized med’s co-defendants this about Sept. 11 — grief,
control of jets to use them week confirmed ongoing anger, toughness, appre-
as passenger-filled missiles, negotiations toward a po- ciation for first responders
hitting the trade center’s tential agreement to avoid and the military, appeals
twin towers and the Penta- a trial and impose lesser to patriotism, hopes for
gon. The fourth plane was but still lengthy sentences. peace, occasional politi-
headed for Washington The Sept. 11 attacks stirred cal barbs, and a poignant
but crashed near Shanks- — for a time — a sense of accounting of the gradua-
ville after crew members national pride and unity for tions, weddings, births and
and passengers tried to many, while also subjecting daily lives that victims have
storm the cockpit. Muslim Americans to years missed.
The attacks killed nearly Firefighters salute each other outside the FDNY Engine 10, Ladder of suspicion and bigotry A few readers note recent
3,000 people, reconfigured 10 fire station near the commemoration ceremony on the 21st and engendering debate events, this year ranging
national security policy anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on Sunday, over the balance between from the still ongoing coro-
and spurred a U.S. “war on Sept. 11, 2022 in New York. Associated Press safety and civil liberties. navirus pandemic to Rus-
terror” worldwide. Sunday’s In ways both subtle and sia’s war in Ukraine.
observances came little Pierre Roldan, who lost his “Now that al-Zawahri is plain, the aftermath of 9/11 Some relatives also lament
more than a month after cousin Carlos Lillo, a para- gone, at least we’re con- ripples through American that a nation which came
a U.S. drone strike killed a medic, said “we had some tinuing to get that justice,” politics and public life to together — to some ex-
key al-Qaida figure who form of justice” when a U.S. Roldan said. this day. tent — after the attacks
helped plot 9/11, Ayman raid killed Osama bin Lad- The self-proclaimed mas- But like some other victims’ has since splintered apart.
al-Zawahri. en in 2011. termind of the attacks, Kha- relatives, Jay Saloman fears Federal law enforcement
that Americans’ conscious- and intelligence agencies,
ness of 9/11 is receding. which were reshaped to
“It was a terrorist attack focus on international ter-
against our country that rorism after 9/11, now see
day. And theoretically, the threat of domestic vio-
everybody should remem- lent extremism as equally
ber it and, you know, take urgent.
precautions and watch “It took a tragedy to unite
out,” said Saloman, who us. It should not take an-
lost his brother, Wayne other tragedy to unite us
Saloman. again,” said Andrew Cola-
By tradition, no political fig- bella, whose cousin, John
ures speak at the ground DiGiovanni, died in the
zero ceremony. The ob- 1993 bombing World Trade
servance centers, instead, Center bombing that pres-
on relatives reading aloud aged 9/11.
the names of the dead. Communities around the
Like a growing number country marked the day
of readers, Brooke Walsh- with candlelight vigils, in-
DiMarzio wasn’t born yet terfaith services and other
when her relative died. commemorations, and
But she took the podium some Americans joined in
to honor her grandmother, volunteer projects. Others
Barbara Walsh. observed the anniversary
“I’m here today to repre- with their own reflections.
sent generation 9/12, those More than 70 of Sekou
who never experienced Siby’s co-workers perished
9/11 but still suffer the after- at Windows on the World,
math of it,” Walsh-DiMarzio the restaurant atop the
said. “We will never, ever trade center’s north tower.
forget.” He had the day off be-
Nikita Shah wore a T-shirt cause another cook asked
that bore the de facto epi- him to switch shifts.
graph of the annual com- “Every 9/11 is a reminder
memoration — “never for- of what I lost that I can
get” — and the name of never recover,” says Siby,
her father, Jayesh Shah. now president of ROC
She was 10 when he was United, a restaurant work-
killed. ers’ advocacy group. He
The family later moved to said ahead of the anniver-
Houston but often returns sary that the attacks made
to New York for the an- him wary of becoming at-
niversary to be “around tached to people when
people who kind of expe- “you have no control over
rienced the same type of what’s going to happen to
grief and the same feelings them next.”q