This year, for the first time in 20 years, the anniversary of 9/11 will be marked without US troops in Afghanistan, where the terrorist attacks were planned. September 11 attacks, also called the 9/11 attacks, series of airline hijackings and suicide attacks were committed in 2001 by 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda against targets in the United States, the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil in US history.

The attacks caused extensive death and destruction and triggered an enormous US effort to combat terrorism. In all, 2,977 people lost their lives, most of them in New York. All 246 passengers and crew aboard the four planes were killed. At the Twin Towers, 2,606 people died - then or later of injuries. At the Pentagon, 125 people were killed. Pentagon officials who survived the attack in Washington that killed 125 reflected on two decades of conflict that has defined several military generations, reported The Wall Street Journal.