Trump warns terrorists on 9/11 anniversary
PRESIDENT Donald Trump warned terrorists that “America cannot be intimidated” as he led a 9/11 commemoration yesterday.
Addressing an audience at the Pentagon, one of three sites hit by hijacked planes 16 years ago, he said: “The terrorists who attacked us thought they could incite fear and weaken our spirit.
“But America cannot be intimidated and those who try will join a long list of vanquished enemies who dared test our mettle.”
Offering words of comfort to those who lost loved ones in the attack, Trump added: “The living, breathing soul of America wept with grief for every life taken on that day.”
Nearly 3000 people were killed in the attacks carried out by al-Qaeda.
Earlier, the president and first lady Melania observed a silence at the White House at the exact moment the first plane slammed into the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001.
Vice president Mike Pence attended a ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where another jet crashed.
Trump, a native New Yorker who was in the city on 9/11, has a chequered history with the event.
He often praises the response to the attack as an example of the resilience of the city.
But he has also made unsubstantiated claims about what he saw that day, including that “thousands” of Muslims cheered across the river from Manhattan as the towers collapsed.