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Joe Biden at Arlington memorial: "Our determination to prevent another attack on the United States remains unbroken"
Photo: MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA
The United States commemorated the victims of the September 11 attacks 21 years ago with several major commemorative events.
High-ranking government officials, survivors and relatives of those killed commemorated the nearly 3,000 fatalities at all three sites from that time on Sunday.
At a funeral service at the Department of Defense in Arlington near the capital Washington, US President Joe Biden promised not to let up in the fight against terrorism.
"We will not rest, we will never forget and we will never give up," he said.
"Our determination to prevent another attack on the United States remains unbroken."
On September 11, 2001, Islamist terrorists hijacked four planes.
After they crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, a short time later another plane flew into the South Tower.
American Airlines Flight 77 steered the attackers into the Department of Defense near Washington.
A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers resisted the hijackers.
The aim of the kidnappers with the fourth machine is still unclear.
While Biden was visiting the Pentagon in Arlington, Vice President Kamala Harris was in New York for the memorial, and First Lady Jill Biden traveled to the crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
In New York, a bell rang at 8:46 a.m., marking the moment the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center in 2001.
Relatives then read the names of all the victims.
One of the relatives used this for a special message in times of great political division in the USA.
The cousin of two victims said to the politicians present: «It took a tragedy to unite our country.
It shouldn't take another tragedy to unite our nation."
Already on Sunday night, two pillars of light had protruded from the ground in New York where the towers of the World Trade Center once stood.
The famous Empire State Building was also lit up in blue to commemorate it.
The terrorist attacks continued to claim thousands of victims well after September 11, 2001.
Many of the first responders and survivors became ill from exposure to a variety of toxins in the debris field of the Twin Towers.
Biden recalled the deployment of rescue workers back then and those Americans who risked or lost their lives in the "war on terror" that followed.
Addressing her and her family, he said: "We are incredibly indebted to you."
In response to the attacks, US-led foreign troops invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
At the time, the international operation led to the fall of the Taliban government, which had given shelter to al-Qaeda terrorists.
The military operation ended last summer.
The hasty and sometimes chaotic troop withdrawal brought a lot of criticism to the Biden government.
The Taliban are now back in power.
The mastermind of the attacks, the then head of the terrorist group al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, was killed by US special forces in 2011 after a long search in Pakistan.
"It took ten years to track down and kill Osama bin Laden, but we did it," Biden said.
Just a few weeks ago, at the end of July, the United States also killed bin Laden's then deputy and later successor, Aiman al-Zawahiri, in a targeted drone attack in Afghanistan.
US Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley said: "The terrorists believed they could destroy us.
You were wrong.
Terror will never destroy us."
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also assured: "America's determination to protect our country will never falter."
whale/dpa