(11 Sep 2010)
New York marked the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 with a ceremony on Saturday at a park near Ground Zero - the former site of the World Trade Center's twin towers.
US Vice President Joe Biden attended the ceremony, along with New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and others.
After greeting other attendees, the group dropped flowers into a small pool before observing a contemplative silence.
A moment of silence began at 8:46 a.m., the time the first hijacked jetliner hit the north tower of the World Trade Center in 2001.
Bells were to toll three more times to mark the moment the second plane hit the tower and for the times that each tower collapsed.
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama were attending separate services in Washington and Shanksville, Pensylvania, for victims at the Pentagon and a rural field.
But the rallies planned in New York embroiled victims' family members in a feud over whether to play politics on the ninth anniversary of the attacks.
Many are bitterly opposed to proposals to build a mosque and Islamic community centre near ground zero.
More than 1-thousand protesters on both sides of the issue were expected to converge at the proposed mosque site, a former clothing factory two blocks north of the trade center site.
The heated mosque debate - pitting advocates of religious freedom against critics who say putting an Islamic centre so close to ground zero disrespects the dead - led Obama to remind Americans on Friday, "We are not at war against Islam."
Meanwhile, a threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book on the anniversary - which had set off international protests - was apparently called off.
The Florida pastor who made the threat flew to New York on Friday night and appeared Saturday on NBC's "Today" show.
He said his church would not burn the Quran, a plan that inflamed much of the Muslim world and drew a stern rebuke from Obama.
While the president was at the Pentagon service on Saturday and the first lady was to join former first lady Laura Bush at Shanksville, Vice President Joe Biden planned to speak at the New York ceremony, where 2,752 people were killed when two jetliners flew into the trade center.
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