8.27am EDT
08:27
The Guardian’s Edward Helmore is in Downtown Manhattan, where the memorial ceremony will soon begin at Ground Zero.
Helmore reports:
The streets of lower Manhattan were sealed off Saturday, the sky as clear as it had been on the day 20 years ago when the terrorist attacks took place.
As firefighters and police, the families of those lost on 9/11, military who had served in the Afghan and Iraq wars, assembled near Ground Zero for the remembrance, there was a pervasive sense of sorrow and respect.
“My feelings today are of sadness,” Sean O’Malley, heading to the memorial to play in the FDNY band. O’Malley, who was off-duty that day and called in to respond, was assembling a team of firefighters when the towers came down.
“It just feels like yesterday. It really does. The loss doesn’t get less, and the pain is certainly still there. It doesn’t lessen with years, you just get to shoulder the burden a little easier. So many wives, lots of families and communities were impacted. So many people who didn’t get to see their children grow up, see them off to college.”
Updated
at 8.29am EDT
8.13am EDT
08:13
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden have arrived at Ground Zero for the 9/11 memorial in New York. They will join the families of the victims. Former President Barack Obama will also join them. The ceremony will begin at 8:30 am.
(@SkyNews)
President Joe Biden has arrived at Ground Zero for the 9/11 memorial event in New York.
Updated
at 8.15am EDT
8.02am EDT
08:02
Hello, Guardian readers.
Today marks the 20th anniversary of 11 September 2001. On this somber day, America will grieve for victims of the terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington DC that killed nearly 3,000 people, sparked long, bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and dramatically altered the course of the 21st century.
Twenty years ago, al-Qaida terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes and steered two of them into the World Trade Center. Victims from across the world were killed in these first explosions. Some jumped to their deaths. Others were killed in the collapse, while millions watched the horrific events unfold on live television.
Al-Qaida terrorists slammed another airplane into the Pentagon, which is the headquarters of the US armed forces near Washington, ripping a hole into the building’s side. The fourth airplane, which may have been destined for the US Capitol, plummeted into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, as passengers heroically fought back against the hijackers.
In total, 2,977 died, with 2,753 victims at Ground Zero in Manhattan. The death toll exceeds fatalities on the “day of infamy” at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
President Joe Biden and the First Lady, Jill Biden, are scheduled to join victims’ families at the three sites where these airlines crashed. Former president Barack Obama will join the Bidens at the 9/11 memorial in New York, at 8.30am. Obama oversaw the killing of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader, in 2011.
While Biden might have wanted the 20th anniversary of 11 September 2001 to provide even a brief sense of unity across the deeply divided US, sharp criticism over the recent US withdrawal from Afghanistan continues.
Following the tumultuous departure of American forces from Kabul less than two weeks ago, which ended the US’s longest war, the Taliban have regained control of Afghanistan. This has stoked fears that Afghanistan – which was controlled by the Taliban on 9/11 – will once again turn into a safe harbor for terrorists.
Updated
at 8.11am EDT