By: Kenji Hall
Associated Press
Some planted trees to remember fallen compatriots.
Others laid wreaths. Some simply mourned quietly
as the strains of trumpets echoed over memorial
services. Across the world, people and governments
marked the second anniversary of the Sept. 11
attacks on Thursday with prayers, promises to
continue fighting terrorism - and reflections on the
changes that the 2001 attacks have wrought
internationally.
At Yokosuka Naval Base just south of Tokyo,
U.S. military personnel held a wreath-laying service.
In Baghdad, the U.S. administrator for Iraq and the
commander of American forces in the country joined
about 100 civilians and soldiers for a moment of
silence Thursday at deposed leader Saddam Hussein's
former Republican Palace in Baghdad.
L. Paul Bremer and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez stood
with the others to bow their heads as a Scottish bagpiper
played "Amazing Grace."
"Let us attune our hearts to the voices crying out from
the Sept. 11, 2001, compelling us to eradicate terrorism
in our world and restore justice and dignity to creation,"
U.S. Army chaplain Col. Frank Wismer said.
In Australia, hundreds of expatriate Americans and
volunteers gathered in a Sydney park to plant some
3,000 trees in remembrance of those who died in the
attacks, among them at least 10 Australians.
"It's painful, but it's pain you have to lock away and
get on with your life," said Antony Milne, a manager
of the World Trade Center's Windows on the World
restaurant who moved to Australia after the attacks.
"If you allow yourself to stay permanently depressed
then the terrorists have won."
At the U.S. Embassy in the Philippines,
U.S. Charge d' Affaires Joseph Mussomeli laid a wreath
at the base of the mission's flagpole, where the U.S.
flag was at half staff. Filipino soldiers played the trumpet
as Mussomeli and an American soldier stood at attention.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard warned the
battle against terrorists would not end anytime soon.
"This war against terrorism is likely to go on for years
and nobody can regard themselves as beyond the reach
of terrorism," Howard told Sky News Television.
"We need to find ways of further cooperation, particularly
at a police and intelligence level."
Howard spoke a day after an Indonesian court sentenced
the convicted mastermind of last October's Bali bombings
to face a firing squad.
The blasts killed 202 people, including 88 Australians,
and was the worst terrorist strike since the Sept. 11
attacks in New York and Washington. Authorities have
blamed the Bali bombings on the al-Qaida-linked
Jemaah Islamiyah group.
President Bush sent a letter to the Ausralian government
expressing condolences over the 10 Australians who
died in the Sept. 11 attacks.
It concluded: "Our struggle to rid the world of terror
continues and it is a living monument to our fellow
countrymen, mine and yours, whose lives were taken
on the 11th of September, 2001."
In China's Muslim northwest, the regional Communist Party
secretary seized the occasion of the Sept. 11 anniversary
to warn that separatists in the country's Xinjiang region
were getting training from international terrorists, including
at "several training camps in Pakistan."
"We have found some training camps in Xinjiang after
the Sept. 11 incident, but not many," he said, adding
that the government's successful efforts to battle forces
opposed to Beijing's rule were being undermined by
assistance from the terrorists abroad.
Across Japan, people paid their respects at memorials
to the thousands, including 24 Japanese, who perished.
"The threat of international terrorism still remains serious,"
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told reporters.
"Japan will further strengthen cooperation with other
countries and continue to tackle the problem."
Half of the Japanese who were killed worked for Fuji Bank
renamed Mizuho after a merger - which had 700 employees
in the World Trade Center. Six Americans working for the
bank died along with the 12 Japanese.
Yasushi Miyama, a Mizuho Financial Group spokesman,
said memorials at his company would be personal.
In South Korea, police beefed up security at airports,
military bases and embassies.
Although no official memorials were planned, authorities
wary of possible attacks during a five-day national thanksgiving
holiday added 257 police officers to the 1,243 guarding the
U.S. Embassy in downtown Seoul and U.S. military facilities
across the country.
Police switched to round-the-clock patrols at the British Embassy
in Seoul, from once every two hours, and extra security was
ordered for other embassies and diplomatic residences in the
capital, according to national police agency officials quoted
by Yonhap news agency.
In Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, people entering the world's
tallest buildings, the Petronas Twin Towers, had their bags
checked, but no extra security was in place Thursday.
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