World

Tears, Tributes As Americans Remember 9/11

Published

2 years ago

September 12, 2023

Eric

From ground zero to small towns, Americans looked back Monday on 9/11 with moments of silence, tearful words and appeals to teach younger generations about the terror attacks 22 years before.

“For those of us who lost people on that day, that day is still happening. Everybody else moves on. And you find a way to go forward, but that day is always happening for you,” Edward Edelman said as he arrived at New York’s World Trade Center to honor his slain brother-in-law, Daniel McGinley.

President Joe Biden was due at a ceremony on a military base in Anchorage, Alaska. His visit, en route to Washington from a trip to India and Vietnam, is a reminder that the impact of 9/11 was felt in every corner of the nation, however remote. Nearly 3,000 people were killed when hijacked planes crashed into the trade center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, in an attack that reshaped American foreign policy and domestic fears.

On that day, “we were one country, one nation, one people, just like it should be. That was the feeling — that everyone came together and did what we could, where we were at, to try to help,” Eddie Ferguson, the fire-rescue chief in Virginia’s Goochland County, said in an interview before the anniversary.

The predominantly rural county of 25,000 people, more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Pentagon, has a Sept. 11 memorial and holds two anniversary commemorations, one focused on first responders and another honoring all the victims.

At ground zero, Vice President Kamala Harris joined other dignitaries at the ceremony on the National Sept. 11 Memorial plaza. Instead of remarks from political figures, the event features victims reading the names of the dead and delivering brief personal messages.

Some included patriotic declarations about American values and thanked first responders and the military. One lauded the Navy SEALs who killed al-Qaida leader and 9/11 plotter Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011. Another appealed for peace and justice. One acknowledged the many lives lost in the post-9/11 “War on Terror.” And many shared reflections on missing loved ones.

“Though we never met, I am honored to carry your name and legacy with me,” said Manuel João DaMota Jr., who was born after his father and namesake died.

Jason Inoa, 20, found it nerve-wracking to tell the crowd about his grandfather, Jorge Velazquez. But Inoa did it for his grandmother, who has Alzheimer’s disease.

“The one thing she does remember is her husband,” he said afterward.

Biden, a Democrat, will be the first president to commemorate Sept. 11 in the western U.S. He and his predecessors have gone to one or another of the attack sites in most years, though Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama each marked the anniversary on the White House lawn at times. Obama followed one of those observances by recognizing the military with a visit to Fort Meade in Maryland.

First lady Jill Biden is due to lay a wreath at the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon, where a giant American flag hung over the side of the building, bells tolled, and musicians played taps at 9:37 a.m., the time when one of the hijacked jets hit the military headquarters.

“As the years go by, it may feel that the world is moving on or even forgetting what happened here on Sept. 11, 2001,” said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who deployed to Iraq in the war that followed the attack. “But please know this: The men and women of the Department of Defense will always remember.”

Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is expected at an afternoon ceremony at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where another plane crashed after passengers tried to storm the cockpit.

At a morning observance, Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, where a gunman killed 11 worshippers in 2018, called for ensuring that younger people know about 9/11.

“With memory comes responsibility, the determination to share our stories with this next generation, so that through them, our loved ones continue to live,” he told the gathering.

The National Park Service-run memorial site is offering a new educational video, virtual tour and other materials for classroom use. Educators with a total of more than 10,000 students have registered for access, organizers say.

Many Americans did volunteer work on what Congress has designated both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance. Others gathered for anniversary events at memorials, firehouses, city halls, campuses and elsewhere.

In Iowa, a march set off at 9:11 a.m. Monday from the Des Moines suburb of Waukee to the state Capitol. In Columbus, Indiana, observances include a remembrance message sent to police, fire and EMS radios. Pepperdine University’s campus in Malibu, California, displays one American flag for each victim, plus the flags of every other country that lost a citizen on 9/11.

New Jersey’s Monmouth County, which was home to some 9/11 victims, this year made Sept. 11 a holiday for county employees so they could attend commemorations.

Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts raise and lower the flag at a commemoration in Fenton, Missouri, where a “Heroes Memorial” includes steel from the World Trade Center’s fallen twin towers and a plaque honoring Jessica Leigh Sachs, a 9/11 victim with relatives among the St. Louis suburb’s 4,000 residents.

“We’re just a little bitty community,” Mayor Joe Maurath said by phone before the anniversary, but “it’s important for us to continue to remember these events. Not just 9/11, but all of the events that make us free.”

– Agency Report

Middle East

Iran Confuses Israel As Missile Splits into Multiple Warheads in Tel Aviv

Published

3 days ago

March 9, 2026

Eric

Israeli authorities are investigating a missile strike in central Tel Aviv that may have involved a weapon breaking into several parts before impact.

The Israeli government’s press office described the incident as a direct hit from a ballistic missile.

A police commander in the Tel Aviv area also told a local Israeli television station that the impact involved what he described as a “splitting missile.”

The description has raised the possibility that the weapon may have been a type of cluster munition. These weapons contain smaller explosive “bomblets” that separate from the main missile and spread across a wider area after the initial explosion.

Israel has previously accused Iran of using similar munitions earlier in the conflict and during the 12-Day War last June.

Cluster munitions are banned by more than 100 countries under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, although Iran, Israel and the United States are not signatories to the treaty.

At the scene of the explosion in Tel Aviv, a CNN reporter said investigators are examining debris believed to be part of the missile.

“Debris still falls in central Tel Aviv even after interceptions. One key piece behind me here that investigators are poring over, one official here telling us that it seems to perhaps be one of the warheads we’ve noticed that appear to split in the sky and send off separate fragments down. Now nobody as far as we understand injured in this location but it’s a sign that despite the fact we’ve seen probably less missiles overall fired by Iran over the past days, it only takes one even with the sophisticated air defences here to cause some havoc in a scene like this.”

The reporter, in to a CNN video, added that the strike has drawn attention from investigators trying to determine whether the weapon signals a change in Iran’s missile capabilities.

“But across the region the focus perhaps now turning as it’s clear Iran’s missile capacities have come down on their ability to wreak havoc closer to Iranian shores with drones that are hitting around the but the scene behind me here is still one of intense scrutiny as I think they try and work out if this marks some kind of new development in Iranian missile technology.”

World

140 Missing As US Submarine Sinks Iran’s Warship in Indian Ocean

Published

1 week ago

March 5, 2026

Eric

No fewer than 140 persons are missing after an Iranian navy ship sank off the coast of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan navy says around 180 people were on board, with 32 rescued.

A spokesperson told the BBC the cause of the sinking was not known. But US Defence Secretary (Secretary of War) said that the US submarine sank Iranian warship with torpedo in Indian Ocean.

Hegseth says that in the Indian Ocean, the US sank “an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters”.

“Instead it was sunk by a torpedo,” he says.

Hegseth did not name the Iranian ship that was attacked.

But earlier, the Sri Lankan navy reported the IRIS Dena went down in the Indian Ocean, with around 140 people on board missing.

Hegseth says “more waves” are coming

This “was never meant to be a fair fight, and it’s not a fair fight”, says Hegseth, adding that the US was punching Iran “while they’re down”.

“More and larger waves are coming, we are just getting started,” he said

Hegseth says Iranian regime are “toast”

Hegseth said the results over the past four days had been “incredible, historic really”.

“They are toast, and they know it,” he said referring to the Iranian regime.

He added that US forces had begun to “hunt, dismantle, demoralise, destroy and defeat” the regime’s capabilities.

He said that Iranian leaders would be looking up and seeing only “US and Israeli air power” until US and Israel decided the war was over.

“America is winning,’” says Hegseth

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said “America is winning, decisively, devastatingly and without mercy.”

“We are only four days in”, he said, but “as Trump has said” the US “will take all the time we need” to make sure the operation is a success.

BBC

Middle East

Israel Declares Hezbollah Leader Marked Target

Published

1 week ago

March 3, 2026

Eric

Israel’s Defence Minister, Israel Katz, has declared the leader of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement a “marked target” following overnight rocket fire from Lebanon.

Katz said on X that Hezbollah chief, Naim Qassem, had acted on orders from Iran in launching attacks on Israel and warned that the group would “pay a heavy price.”

Qassem succeeded Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike in Lebanon in September 2024.

The Israeli military said several rockets were fired from Lebanon overnight, with one intercepted and others landing in open areas.

Hezbollah said the attack was in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in an Israeli airstrike in Tehran on Saturday.

In response, Israel said it carried out fresh strikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including weapons depots and other infrastructure.

The military reported bombardments in Beirut and elsewhere, saying senior militia members were among those hit.

Meanwhile, residents near the office of Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, reported no signs of a missile strike on Monday, after Iran claimed it had targeted the building.

The residents said that prime minister’s fate was unknown.

Air raid sirens sounded around noon in the Jerusalem area, as well as in several regions across central and southern Israel.

In spite of the alerts, local police and rescue services said there were no reported hits, injuries, damage or interceptions over Jerusalem.

Residents living close to the prime minister’s office said they had not witnessed any missile impact in the vicinity.

Reporters at the scene observed no visible presence of military personnel, police forces or emergency responders outside the compound.

Traffic in surrounding streets continued as normal, with no smoke seen rising from the area.

The building appeared intact and undamaged.

The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Iranian statement.

Israeli media commentators dismissed the claim.

Amit Segal, chief political analyst for Channel 12 News, described it as “fake news” in a post on Telegram.

Suleiman Maswadeh, chief diplomatic correspondent for the State-owned Kan, also said on Telegram that the claimed lacked corroboration.