New York Pauses to Remember 9/11 Anniversary

A new building stands where the towers fell. A museum dedicated to the death and destruction that day is now open to the public. And 13 years after thousands of people died in the deadliest terrorist attack in American history, the ceremonies to memorialize once again played out across the country on Thursday morning.

But this year, as families of the victims gathered in Lower Manhattan, at the Pentagon and at a field in Pennsylvania, it was not the work that has been finished but what lies ahead that was shadowing the solemn day.

Even as two blue streams of light pierced the New York City skyline Wednesday night, President Obama was laying out his case for a stepped up military campaign to defeat a terrorist organization bent on causing more destruction.

'We cannot erase every trace of evil from the world, and small groups of killers have the capacity to do great harm,' Mr. Obama said. 'That was the case before 9/11, and that remains true today.'

At 8:46 a.m. Thursday, the time the first plane struck the north tower on Sept. 11, 2001, there was a moment of silence. In Washington, Mr. Obama, joined by his wife and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., stood on the White House lawn, heads bowed.

At 9:03, a second pause was observed for the moment a plane hit the south tower. There were four more moments of silence interrupting the annual reading of the names of those who had died at the World Trade Center - for when each tower fell and for the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93 into a field in Pennsylvania, which killed all 40 passengers and crew members.

On Thursday, the president joined military leaders outside the Pentagon to remember those killed there that day.

In New York, families gathered in Lower Manhattan to read aloud the names of all those killed when the towers fell.

Danielle Kousoulis was on the 104th floor of the north tower when the first plane hit. She was 29 years old, and would have turned 30 a few weeks after the attacks.

Her parents, Zoe and George, said that while time had not healed the wounds of that day, they had figured out how to live with the pain.

But they do not know how to feel about America once again stepping up its military fight against a band of extremists.

'We do have to somehow retaliate if people do these things to us, because what ISIS does, that can affect us here,' Ms. Kousoulis said. But, she added: 'You'd think people would learn to be more tolerant. I can't understand how there can be so much hate. I don't know why we can't have world peace.'

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