20th Anniversary Of 9/11 Attacks: US Pays Tribute, Joe Biden's Encouraging Video Message For Citizens

"We commemorate the 2,977 lives we lost and honor those who risked and gave their lives. As we saw in the days that followed, unity is our greatest strength", Prez Joe Biden said in the video message.

New Delhi: A video message was put out by US President Joe Biden on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in which he said that unity is "our greatest strength". 

"To me, that's the central lesson of September 11th. It's that at our most vulnerable, in the push and pull of all that makes us human, in the battle for the soul of America, unity is our greatest strength," Biden says in a six-minute message.

"Unity doesn't mean we have to believe the same thing, but we must have a fundamental respect and faith in each other and in this nation," Biden says in his video.

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will stop at each of the locations of the attacks on Saturday to "honor and memorialize the lives lost," the White House said according to an AFP report. 

On September 11, 2001, a passenger plane crashed into one of the two 110-storey World Trade Center towers in New York City’s business district of Lower Manhattan. Before people could get over the shock, another fuel-loaded plane flew into the other tower. Soon, the twin towers collapsed, killing many and injuring countless people.

Followed by the attack on the Pentagon, when an airliner tore into the side of the superpower's military nerve center, killing 184 people in the plane and on the ground.

This was not all, another plane crashed on a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers fought back, sending United 93 down before reaching its intended target likely the US Capitol building in Washington.

Commemorations will unfold on Saturday at each of the three sites where 19 Al-Qaeda hijackers mostly from Saudi Arabia crashed packed airliners. 

According to an AFP report, at New York's Ground Zero, relatives will read out the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed, in a four-hour-long service starting at 8:30 am (1230 GMT). Six moments of silence will be observed, corresponding with the times the two World Trade Center towers were struck, and fell, and the moments the Pentagon was attacked and Flight 93 crashed.

But the US troops' hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan seems to be overshadowing a sense of closure. Biden has been criticized for his management of the withdrawal and the struggle to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, is not expected to speak in public during the ceremonies reported AFP.