President Trump and the First Lady attending the 9/11 memorial ceremony at the Pentagon. AP=Yonhap News. 

The 24th-anniversary memorial ceremony for the 9/11 terrorist attacks, recorded as the worst disaster in U.S. history, was held consecutively on the 11th (local time) at the sites of the attacks, including Manhattan in New York and the U.S. Department of War (Pentagon) near Washington D.C.

U.S. President Donald Trump attended the memorial ceremony held at the Pentagon building alongside First Lady Melania Trump.

Most members of the Trump administration's cabinet also attended the event, joining in the memorial proceedings, which included reading the names of the victims, bell ringing, and moments of silence.

In his speech, President Trump sent a message to the terrorists, stating, "If you attack America, we will track you down, find you, crush you without mercy, and triumph without a doubt." He added, "This is why we renamed the Department of Defense to the Department of War. (The Department of War) will be different. You will fail, and America will win."

At the start of his speech, President Trump paid tribute to his close associate, right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who was killed by gunfire during an assassination attempt while giving a lecture at Utah Valley University in Utah the previous day. He announced that he would soon award Kirk the 'Presidential Medal of Freedom,' the highest civilian honor in the U.S.

In New York, which saw the highest number of casualties, a solemn memorial ceremony was held at 'Ground Zero,' the site where the World Trade Center (WTC) towers, which collapsed after being struck by aircraft, once stood.

As in previous years, bereaved families and colleagues of the victims took to the podium to read the names of nearly 3,000 victims one by one and ring bells in their honor.

Vice President JD Vance and his wife were scheduled to attend the New York memorial ceremony, but they canceled the trip and are instead heading to Salt Lake City, Utah, to offer condolences to Kirk's bereaved family.

The 9/11 attacks, carried out on this day in 2001 by the Islamic fundamentalist group al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden, stand as the worst tragedy in American history since the nation's founding, involving the hijacking of four civilian aircraft that crashed into the two WTC towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The attacks resulted in a total of 2,977 deaths, including 2,753 in New York and 184 at the Pentagon.

Yonhap News