World remembers September 11, two years on

World leaders and relatives of victims joined together around the globe today to pay tribute to the victims of the September 11 attacks with remembrance services including a tree-planting ceremony in Australia and the opening of a memorial garden in London.

Governments marked the second anniversary of the attacks by pledging to pursue the international campaign against terrorism alongside the United States, with some suggesting similarities between the strikes in New York and Washington and acts of violence in their own countries.

In London, Princess Anne opened a garden of remembrance near the US Embassy dedicated to the 67 Britons who died in the World Trade Centre. A twisted metal girder recovered from the Twin Towers is buried beneath the garden.

“It’s particularly important to us because many families, my own included, had no remains returned to us,” Jim Cudmore, who lost his 39-year-old son, Neil Cudmore, in the attacks, said of the garden.

The extremist Islamic group al-Muhajiroun called the 19 hijackers “brave warriors” who had sacrificed their lives for Allah.

Spokesman Abu Uzayr told a news conference in north London: “According to us, it was a good deed in the eyes of Islam.”

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder branded the attacks “cowardly” and warned that work remained to be done in the war against terrorism.

“This battle that we are fighting along with our American friends is not yet won – neither in Afghanistan nor anywhere else in the world,” Schroeder said in a speech at the Frankfurt International Auto Show. “We must recognise that we still cannot let up in this battle.”

United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan remembered all those killed by terrorism since 2001 attacks, including UN personnel who died when a bomb exploded at the Baghdad headquarters last month.

“All nations must work together in the fight against terrorism, which is an affront to the spirit and purposes of the United Nations, and has become a leading threat to international peace and security,” he said in a statement.

At Yokosuka Naval Base just south of Tokyo, US military personnel held a wreath-laying service, while people across Japan paid their respects at memorials to those who died, including 24 Japanese.

“Among the victims were not only citizens in New York but many Japanese,” said Japan’s prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi. “The sorrow of their bereaved family members remains.

“Why were those innocent citizens victimised? The people’s anger against terrorism will never peter out.”

In Baghdad, the US administrator for Iraq and the commander of American forces joined about 100 civilians and soldiers for a moment of silence at Saddam Hussein’s former Republican Palace in Baghdad.

L Paul Bremer and Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez bowed their heads as a Scottish bagpiper played Amazing Grace.

At the US Embassy in the Philippines, Charge d’ Affaires Joseph Mussomeli laid a wreath by the mission’s flagpole, where the US flag was at half mast, and the Bahrain-based US Navy’s 5th Fleet held a short ceremony to honour victims of the attacks.

In Australia, hundreds of expatriate Americans and volunteers planted 3,000 trees in a Sydney park in remembrance of the dead, among them at least 10 Australians.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the battle against terrorists would not end anytime soon. He spoke a day after an Indonesian court sentenced the convicted mastermind of last October’s Bali bombings to face a firing squad. The blasts killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, and was the worst terrorist strike since the September 11 attacks. Authorities have blamed the Bali bombings on the al Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah group.

Top Russian officials paid homage to the victims of September 11, saying Russia’s solidarity with America was born from shared experience.

“The day on which the black cloud of dust from the collapsed skyscrapers overcast the blue sky over New York will go down in world history,” Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov said in a statement.

Moscow has portrayed its battle against rebels in Chechnya as a part of the international struggle against terrorism. Russian authorities have blamed Chechens for the suicide bombings and other attacks that killed more than 150 people in and around Chechnya and in Moscow during the period from May to August alone.

In Brussels, the 15 European Union governments issued a joint statement reaffirming their “close solidarity” with the United States.

Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller told a memorial ceremony at the US Embassy in Warsaw that “there are times when it seems the sun is not shining, just like two years ago”.

In China’s Muslim north-west, the regional Communist Party secretary seized the occasion to warn that separatists in the country’s Xinjiang region were getting training from international terrorists, including at “several training camps in Pakistan”.

In Muslim majority Pakistan about 150 people, mostly school children, held a memorial service in Lahore.

“We want to show the world that we are not terrorists,” said Aneela Amir, co-ordinator of the Insan Foundation, a peace group that organised the rally. “In fact we Pakistanis are peace loving people. ... We pray for the people who died in the World Trade Centre.”

In Afghanistan, residents on the streets of Kabul revelled in the changes since the United States ousted the Taliban regime.

“Two years ago, I was in Iran and didn’t follow the news. September 11 doesn’t mean anything to me, but I’m happy to be back. It’s much better now that the war is over,” said Leila Ahmadi, 25, who returned to Kabul with her family five months ago.