United States remembers 9/11

At 8:46 a.m. (1246 UTC), 14 years to the minute since the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center, mourners gathered in New York. Victims' relatives - fewer than had attended previous ceremonies - gathered at the World Trade Center site, carrying photos emblazoned with the names of their lost loved ones. Similar commemorations took place at the Pentagon and in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

"The crowds get smaller, but we want to be here," said 81-year-old Tom Acquaviva, who lost his son Paul in the trade center's north tower. "As long as I'm breathing, I'll be here."

The attacks of September 11, 2001, killed nearly 3,000 people, including Germans, in New York, at the Pentagon and aboard a hijacked airliner that went down in Pennsylvania. After years of private commemorations at ground zero, the anniversary now also has become an occasion for public reflection on the site of the terror attacks.

"Emotions and memories of 9/11 are with us so vividly today and always," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio wrote. "We will #NeverForget our loved ones and first responders."

Following the moment of silence in New York, police and relatives of those killed in the World Trade Center began the annual reading of the names of the victims at ground zero, now the site of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. Next to the 16-acre (6.5-hectare) site where the Twin Towers stood, 1 World Trade Center, the tallest skyscraper in the Western hemisphere, has newly opened.

The aftermath of the attacks left lower Manhattan blanketed in a toxic dust that many have blamed for a wave of cancers and other ailments that have left some residents and first responders dead.

Commemorations elsewhere

At the same time in Washington, DC, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama stepped out of the White House to observe the first of a series of moments of silence. A few hundred people - including political officials such as National Security Advisor Susan Rice and the White House chefs, gardeners and other residence staff - joined the Obamas for the ceremony. Later on Friday, the president planned to observe the anniversary with a visit to Fort Meade, Maryland, in recognition of the US military's various deployments in the 14 years since the attacks by the terror group al Qaeda.

The Flight 93 National Memorial in western Pennsylvania opened its visitor center to the public on Thursday. Officials believe that the passengers fought back against the hijackers, who crashed the plane - perhaps intended for the Capitol or the White House - upside down at nearly 600 miles per hour (950 kph). At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and other officials joined in remembrances for victims' relatives and Defense Department employees.

Federal Bureau of Investigation head James Comey said officials knew of no "specific or credible threats" on the anniversary, but added that analysts would remain alert for potential attacks by al Qaeda or "Islamic State." The latter group has emerged in the wars that followed September 11, 2001. On Thursday, the Justice Department reported the arrest of a 20-year-old Florida man accused of plotting to detonate a pressure-cooker bomb at a memorial in Kansas City, Missouri.

mkg/kms (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)