THOUSANDS of people will gather at Ground Zero today, the site of the Twin Towers in New York, to mark the twentieth anniversary of the attacks which left nearly 3,000 people dead and the world changed forever.

Millions of people from around the world will watch again those images of two passenger jets slamming into the World Trade Center on that sunny autumn morning in 2001.

Just 19 fanatics in four hijacked planes brought death, destruction and chaos to the world’s superpower.

The anniversary will also stir memories of Britain’s own 9/11 – the suicide bombings on the London Underground and buses that left 52 dead on July 7, 2005.

Daily Echo:  The waterfall memorial at GroundZero, above, which bears the names of all 9/11victims. Left – the aftermath.

The repercussions from the 9/11 atrocity continue to be felt. The Twin Towers attacks sparked the ‘War on Terror’ that led to two major wars – the hunt for “weapons of mass destruction” and the ousting of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the attack on al-Qaeda’s powerbase in Afghanistan.