Twenty-four years on, New York marks 9/11 amid political rifts

NEW YORK: The city of New York will commemorate the September 11, 2001 attacks commonly called 9/11 today 24 years after hijacked planes killed nearly 3,000 people and scarred the United States forever.

Vice President JD Vance is expected to attend the annual memorial at Ground Zero in Manhattan, where the World Trade Center’s twin towers once stood. Ceremonies will also honour the victims of Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against hijackers, and the attack on the Pentagon.

At 8:46 a.m. (1246 GMT), the moment Flight 11 struck the North Tower, the city will fall silent. Church bells will ring across New York, and families of the victims will once again read out the names of those lost.

Ceremony under political shadow

This year’s remembrance comes against the backdrop of an unusually charged mayoral race pitting socialist Democrat Zohran Mamdani against former governor Andrew Cuomo and incumbent mayor Eric Adams. Traditionally, the city’s mayor attends the memorial, but it remains unclear which candidates will be present.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted Mamdani, a Muslim and naturalised citizen, labelling him a “communist lunatic.” One Republican lawmaker even suggested he be deported. Yet Mamdani currently holds a commanding 22-point lead, according to the latest New York Times/Siena poll.

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Mamdani, reflecting on the aftermath of 9/11, told The Times: “It was this horrific day that was also for many New Yorkers the moment at which they were marked an ‘other,’” recalling the surge of Islamophobia that followed the attacks.

Violence adds to tensions

The commemoration also comes amid a surge in political violence nationwide. In recent months, conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated at a campus event, a Democratic state lawmaker and her husband were murdered in Minnesota, and the Pennsylvania governor’s residence was firebombed.

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Despite the divisions, Thursday’s solemn ceremonies will return to their familiar rituals of silence, prayer, and remembrance, reflecting the enduring impact of the deadliest terrorist attack on US soil.