The Queen has sent a message to US President Biden marking 20 years since the 11 September attacks, saying her thoughts and prayers were with the victims, survivors and their families.
In her message, she also paid tribute to the resilience of the communities who joined together to rebuild.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the terrorists had failed to “shake our belief in freedom and democracy”.
A total of 2,977 people died in the terror attacks, including 67 Britons.
Events are being held around the world to remember those who lost their lives.
The attacks, which were planned by al-Qaeda from Afghanistan, saw four US passenger jets seized by suicide attackers – two of which were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York.
Another plane crashed into the Pentagon, just outside the US capital, Washington DC, and a fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back.
As part of the day’s events to mark the anniversary, a private service of remembrance organised by the September 11 UK Families Support Group will be held at Grosvenor Square in central London.
After sunset, 67 candles will be lit in the garden to remember each of the British victims.
In her message to President Biden, the Queen said: “As we mark the 20th anniversary of the terrible attacks on September 11 2001, my thoughts and prayers, and those of my family and the entire nation, remain with the victims, survivors and families affected, as well as the first responders and rescue workers called to duty.
“My visit to the site of the World Trade Center in 2010 is held fast in my memory.
“It reminds me that as we honour those from many nations, faiths and backgrounds who lost their lives, we also pay tribute to the resilience and determination of the communities who joined together to rebuild.”
And in a defiant message to mark the anniversary, the prime minister said while the terror threat remained, people refused “to live in permanent fear”.
“That we are coming together today – in sorrow but also in faith and resolve – demonstrates the failure of terrorism.”
In the prime minister’s address, which will be played at a memorial event at the Olympic Park in east London on Saturday, he said recent events in Afghanistan had only strengthened people’s belief in freedom and democracy.
“Twenty years ago, September 11 2001 became, in President Roosevelt’s words after Pearl Harbor, a ‘date which will live in infamy’,” Mr Johnson said.
“On a crystal clear morning, terrorists attacked the United States with the simple goal of killing or maiming as many human beings as possible, and by inflicting such bloodshed in the world’s greatest democracy, they tried to destroy the faith of free peoples everywhere in the open societies which terrorists despise and which we cherish.”
Mr Johnson said that “precisely because of the openness and tolerance of the United States” almost every nationality and religion were among those murdered that day.
“But while the terrorists imposed their burden of grief and suffering, and while the threat persists today, we can now say with the perspective of 20 years that they failed to shake our belief in freedom and democracy; they failed to drive our nations apart, or cause us to abandon our values, or to live in permanent fear.”
BBC
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