Washington – President Joe Biden marked the 21st anniversary of the September 11 attacks, laying a wreath at the Pentagon in a sombre ceremony held in the incessant rain.
Sunday’s ceremony was held just over a year after Biden ended the long and costly war in Afghanistan that the United States and its allies launched in response to the terrorist attacks.
In ending the war in Afghanistan, the Democratic president made good on his campaign pledge to bring American troops home from the country’s longest conflict. But the war ended chaotically in August 2021, when the US-backed Afghan government collapsed in the face of a Taliban advance across the country that brought the fundamentalist group back to power. A bombing claimed by an Afghanistan-based extremist group killed 170 Afghans and 13 US soldiers at Kabul airport, as thousands of desperate Afghans gathered in hopes of escape before the last US cargo planes left over the Hindu Kush.
In his remarks Sunday, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Biden would recognize the impact of the 2001 attacks on the United States and the world and honor the nearly 3,000 people killed that day when al-Qaeda hijackers seized and crashed commercial airliners. At the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania Field.
“I think you’ll hear him talk about how America will remain vigilant about the threat but also look to future threats and challenges and be able to learn to face those threats and challenges,” Kirby said.
Biden marked the first anniversary of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan late last month in a quiet style. He issued a statement honoring the 13 US soldiers killed in the Kabul airport bombing and spoke by phone with US veterans assisting ongoing efforts to resettle Afghans in the United States who aided the war effort.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday criticized Biden’s handling of the end of the war and noted that the country has been deteriorating under renewed Taliban rule since the United States withdrew.
“Now, a year after last August’s disaster, the devastating scope of President Biden’s decision is in even sharper focus,” McConnell said. “Afghanistan has become a global pariah. Its economy has shrunk by nearly a third. Half of its population is now experiencing critical levels of food insecurity.”
First Lady Jill Biden will speak Sunday at the National Flight 93 Memorial Celebration in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband attended a memorial service at the National September 11 Memorial in New York.
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