New York marks 25th anniversary of 9/11 attacks amid Trump absence, Mamdani row

New York commemorates the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on Friday with a ceremony marked by President Donald Trump's absence and right-wing outrage over the attendance of the city's first Muslim mayor.

Bereaved families will read the names of the 2,977 victims at the "Ground Zero" site in lower Manhattan.

Why is Trump skipping the 9/11 ceremony in New York?

Trump will pay his respects at the Pentagon instead of New York, where hijacked planes destroyed the World Trade Center and killed most of the day's victims.

Vice President JD Vance and all four of Trump's living predecessors, George W. Bush, Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, are expected in Manhattan in his place.

What happens at the 9/11 anniversary ceremony?

No speeches will be given at the ceremony. Bereaved family members will instead read out the names of everyone killed, while a bell is rung to mark key moments during the attack.

"Memorials like this and discussions about those events are an important part of keeping it alive and understanding how we prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again," said Robert Kafka, a Chicagoan in his 60s visiting the 9/11 Memorial.

Why is Mayor Mamdani's attendance controversial?

Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani, New York's first Muslim mayor, will join the former presidents at the ceremony despite a campaign urging him to stay away. The New York Post and former mayor Rudy Giuliani spearheaded that effort. A petition with more than 100,000 signatures accuses Mamdani of associating with unspecified individuals "dismissive of American institutions or insufficiently critical of extremist ideologies."

City council member Shahana Hanif told CNN, "It's concerning to me that the mayor is being treated differently simply because he is Muslim."

What did Mamdani reveal about toxic air after 9/11?

Mamdani won praise for recently releasing thousands of documents showing what city officials knew about toxicity levels in Lower Manhattan's air following the attacks. Months of pollution and lingering dust followed the initial cloud from the World Trade Center's collapse, causing cancers that thousands of New Yorkers still suffer from today.

"People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air," Mamdani said Tuesday.

How many people were killed in the 9/11 attacks?

Nineteen Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four planes on that nearly cloudless day in 2001. Two jets struck the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, causing the 110-story buildings to collapse, while a third hit the Pentagon. A fourth crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers fought back. Beyond those killed that day, more than 9,400 people have since died from 9/11-related illnesses, according to the federal program set up to provide medical care to those affected.

Some 100 million Americans were not yet born or are too young to remember the attacks. Logan Miller, 32, lost his uncle in the attacks and his grandfather to a 9/11-related illness afterward. "I think the next generation just can't fathom what actually transpired and how someone could be impacted by that, and so I actually find them asking more questions," he told AFP.

What security measures are in place for the 25th anniversary?

Huge crowds are expected in Lower Manhattan for the memorial service, and the Secret Service has erected a tight security perimeter around the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.

Police commissioner Jessica Tisch said an anti-drone team would be deployed as a precaution, though she stressed there was no intelligence pointing to a specific threat. Al-Qaeda marked the anniversary separately by releasing a video showing late leader Osama bin Laden and his son Hamza, whom Trump said in 2019 had also been killed.

Ahead of the memorial, a drone show featuring 2,977 lights rose above New York Harbor, one for each victim of the attacks.