US leads commemorations 25 years after 9/11 attacks with tributes to victims | BBC News

Twenty-five years after 9/11, US presidents past and present have commemorated the lives lost when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

President Donald Trump led a Pentagon ceremony, while US Vice-President JD Vance attended a memorial at the site of the World Trade Center in New York, along with all four living former US presidents and first ladies.

Moments of silence were held to mark the timings of the attacks and the names of nearly 3,000 people who died were read out. Commemorations were also held in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 crashed after passengers fought back against the hijackers.

George W Bush, who was president at the time of the attacks, was joined by former Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at Friday's ceremony. At the Pentagon, President Trump attended a commemoration alongside cabinet secretaries and Condoleezza Rice, who was national security advisor on 9/11.

He sought to link the "war on terror" that followed 9/11, which sparked years of US involvement in Middle East wars, with his current conflict in Iran. Trump told the crowd that the Islamic Republic "will never, ever have a nuclear weapon".

Every year on 11 September, bells ring to commemorate the exact time that each of the four planes crashed, and the exact time the Twin Towers fell. Each of the six bells is followed by a moment of silence. This year, a seventh bell was rung to commemorate the thousands who died from diseases including cancer after the attacks. Illnesses related to dust and smoke from the towers' collapse have since claimed more than threefold the nearly 3,000 lives lost in the attacks, US health officials say.

The majority of those who carried out the 9/11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia and planning was led by al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin-Laden, scion of a prominent Saudi family. But Saudi officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks, and in 2004 the 9/11 Commission Report "found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded" al-Qaeda.

Events were also held elsewhere to honour the victims. In London, there was a ceremonial event at Buckingham Palace attended by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and the US ambassador Warren Stephens. The Toronto Stock Exchange also held an event to remember colleagues who died in the attacks

Reeta Chakrabarti presents BBC News at Ten reporting by Nada Tawfik and Frank Gardner.

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