A quarter of a century has passed since hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, yet the events of 11 September 2001 remain etched in the American consciousness more deeply than almost any other moment in recent history. For Europeans, the day also carries a personal weight: dozens of EU citizens and Britons were among the nearly 3,000 people killed.
According to a new Ipsos poll, roughly half of American adults spontaneously name 9/11 as one of the most significant events of their lifetime, ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic, the presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and Hurricane Katrina. Nine in ten say the attacks changed the country “a great deal” or “quite a bit,” and most can still recall exactly where they were when they heard the news.
Yet despite that enduring wound, only about one in ten Americans plans to actively mark Friday’s anniversary. For those who do, a moment of silence and flying the flag are the most common gestures. Confidence in the government’s ability to prevent another attack has also declined steadily since the record highs recorded in the days after 2001.
Commemorations across three sites
Ceremonies will unfold at the three attack sites. In New York, relatives of victims will gather on the Memorial plaza to read aloud the names of the dead, punctuated by seven moments of silence — one more than in previous years, added to honour those who have since died of 9/11-related illnesses. Similar events will take place at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Donald Trump will not attend the New York ceremony this year, opting instead to speak at the Pentagon. Vice President JD Vance will go to Ground Zero, while former presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush are expected to attend the New York event.
Why “9/11”?
The shorthand can puzzle non-Americans. The date was the eleventh day of the ninth month, but the American convention of writing dates month-first yields “9/11,” which also mirrors the emergency number 911 dialled in the US.
Europe’s toll
While the majority of the dead were American, hundreds of foreign nationals also lost their lives. Estimates put the number of non-American victims at roughly 372, drawn from about 60 countries. Britain suffered the heaviest toll of any country besides the US, with 67 nationals killed. Germany lost 11, Italy 10, Ireland 6, Poland 6, Portugal 5, France 4, Romania 4, and the former Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) 2. Sweden, Switzerland, Belarus, Belgium, Lithuania, Moldova, the Netherlands, Russia, Spain, and Ukraine each lost one citizen.
Many of these Europeans worked in the financial sector. Cantor Fitzgerald, an American brokerage, occupied floors 101–105 of the North Tower, directly above the impact zone of American Airlines Flight 11. The firm employed a number of Europeans and lost 658 employees that day — the largest loss of life of any single company.
The perpetrators and the long road to justice
All 19 hijackers died in the attacks: 15 were Saudi nationals, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon. Behind them stood al-Qaeda, which claimed responsibility. Osama bin Laden evaded capture for nearly a decade before being killed by US special forces in Pakistan in 2011. His successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed in a drone strike in Kabul in 2022.
The self-described “mastermind” of the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and has been held at Guantánamo Bay since 2006, charged with the first-degree murder of 2,977 people. A US military judge has now set his long-delayed trial to begin in June 2028, alongside several alleged co-conspirators, following the collapse of a 2024 plea deal that would have seen the men admit guilt in exchange for removing the death penalty from sentencing options. Proceedings have dragged on for over two decades amid disputes over evidence obtained through the use of torture, including waterboarding, at secret CIA sites.
For Europe, the legacy of 9/11 is intertwined with broader security concerns, from the war in Ukraine to the rise of new threats. The attacks reshaped transatlantic relations, leading to NATO’s first invocation of Article 5 and the subsequent interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq — decisions that still resonate in European capitals today.
As the 25th anniversary is marked, the absence of final justice for many victims’ families remains a painful reminder of how long the shadow of that September morning has stretched.
