US marks seventh anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks
11 Sep 2008
New York: Moments of silence are planned to mark the time when two hijacked jetliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York, along with the moments when the buildings collapsed, on the occasion of the seventh anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks.
Relatives of victims killed at the WTC have begun arriving since dawn for the ceremonies.
The incident, since referred to as the 9/11 attacks, have resulted in the unleashing of a global 'war on terror'.
Services will also be held in Pennsylvania and the Pentagon, where other hijacked airliners went down. The Pentagon will also be the site of a new memorial.
President George W Bush and his wife Laura Bush will mark the anniversary with a moment of silence on the South Lawn of the White House after which they will head to the Pentagon for the memorial there.
Both presidential candidates, the Republican John McCain and Democrat Barak Obama, were scheduled to visit Ground Zero later in the day.
More than 2,700 people from 90 countries around the world died that day in New York. The ceremony will include the reading of 2,751 victims' names.
Former mayor Rudy Giuliani was to speak at the ceremony, as he has every year in New York, along with officials including Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In Arlington, Va., defence secretary Robert Gates was scheduled to speak at a ceremony dedicating the memorial at the Pentagon, the first of three major 11 September memorials to be completed.