New York prepares to mark the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001, today, 24 years after the deadly hijackings that took the lives of nearly 3,000 people and changed the United States forever.

Vice President Jay D. Vance will attend memorial ceremonies at Ground Zero in Manhattan, where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed in coordinated attacks that also saw a plane crash into the nerve center of American military power, the Pentagon in Washington.

Another plane, Flight 93, crashed in rural Pennsylvania when passengers overpowered the hijacker and took control of the aircraft.

This year's gathering comes amid sharp political divisions both in the city and nationally.

New York is in the throes of an unprecedented mayoral election campaign, with Democratic socialist candidate Zoran Mamdani facing off against former governor Andrew Cuomo and current mayor Eric Adams.

New Yorkers will vote on November 4.

It was unclear which of the mayoral candidates would attend the ceremony, which is always attended by the incumbent mayor and community leaders.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked Mamdani, a Muslim and naturalized American citizen, calling him a "crazy communist," and a Republican lawmaker has called for the front-runner to be deported.

Mamdani leads by 22 points in the race, according to the latest polls by The New York Times and Siena.

"That terrible day was the moment when many New Yorkers were marked as 'the others,'" Mamdani told the Times, describing the wave of Islamophobic attacks that followed September 11.

It is unclear whether Trump will attend the memorial ceremonies in New York, as he has done in recent years.

In recent months, the US has been hit by a wave of political violence, including the murder of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, followed by the targeted killing of a Democratic lawmaker from Minnesota and her husband, and the arson attack on the residence of a Democratic governor.

New York will observe a minute of silence at 8:46 a.m. local time (3:46 p.m. Bulgarian time), the time when hijacked Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Churches across the city will ring their bells to mark the impact, while families of the victims read the names of those who died at Ground Zero.

The official death toll is 2,977, including passengers and crew on the four hijacked planes, victims in the towers, firefighters, and Pentagon personnel.

The death toll does not include the 19 members of al-Qaeda who hijacked the planes. | BGNES

---

Material from AFP.