9/11 attacks still reverberate as US marks 21st anniversary

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans remembered 9/11 on Sunday with tear-choked tributes, and pleas to “never forget,” 21 years after the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil.

Bonita Mentis set out to read victims’ names at the ground zero ceremony wearing a necklace with a photo of her slain sister, Shevonne Mentis, a 25-year-old Guyanese immigrant who worked for a financial firm.

“It’s been 21 years, but it’s not 21 years for us. It seems like just yesterday,” Mentis said. “The wounds are still fresh.”

“No matter how many years have passed, nobody can actually comprehend that what happened that very day,” she added.

Victims’ relatives and dignitaries also convened at the other two attack sites, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

More than two decades later, Sept. 11 remains a point for reflection on the hijacked-plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, reconfigured national security policy and spurred a U.S. “war on terror” worldwide. Sunday’s observances, which follow a fraught milestone anniversary last year, come little more than a month after a U.S. drone strike killed a key al-Qaida figure who helped plot the 9/11 attacks, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Read the rest of the story, including quotes from relatives of the victims, here: