President Donald Trump led a ceremony at the Pentagon on Friday to mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, as the United States remembered the nearly 3,000 people killed in the coordinated hijackings.
Trump and first lady Melania Trump watched from the stage as the names of the 184 victims killed at the Pentagon were read aloud. A bell sounded after each name during the solemn observance.
Earlier, in heavy rain at sunrise, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and senior military leaders witnessed a huge American flag being unfurled over the section of the building struck by American Airlines Flight 77 on September 11, 2001.
The aircraft crashed into the Pentagon at 9.37am, killing passengers and crew members aboard the flight as well as people inside the military headquarters. In total, 2,977 people died in the attacks in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The ceremony was Trump’s second consecutive September 11 observance at the Pentagon. The president, a native of New York, attended the commemoration at Ground Zero in 2024.
Vice-President JD Vance attended the anniversary ceremony in New York, alongside former presidents, while other senior administration officials took part in events in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 crashed after passengers attempted to overpower the hijackers.
Trump had earlier declared September 11, 2026, Patriot Day, calling on government departments and agencies to fly the US flag at half-mast in honour of those killed.
At a remembrance event outside the White House on Tuesday, he said the attacks were among the rare moments in history that divided time into “what came before” and what followed.
The event featured a 21ft steel beam recovered from the South Tower of the World Trade Centre, which had travelled across the country as part of a memorial tour organised by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation.
