Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II on Saturday marked the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks by offering her sympathies to the victims, survivors and families of the tragedy that killed almost 3,000 people, including 67 British nationals. In a message to US President Joe Biden, the Queen said that her prayers remained with victims and survivors of the attacks. 

“My thoughts and prayers — and those of my family and the entire nation — remain with the victims, survivors and families affected, as well as the first responders and rescue workers called to duty,’’ she said.

“My visit to the site of the World Trade Center in 2010 is held fast in my memory. It reminds me that as we honor those from many nations, faiths and backgrounds who lost their lives, we also pay tribute to the resilience and determination of the communities who joined together to rebuild.”

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On September 11, 2001, four US airliners were hijacked by terrorists associated with al Qaeda and flown into the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon just outside Washington, DC, and a field in Pennsylvania.

On the 20th anniversary on 9/11, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the Sept. 11 attackers failed in their aim of making people in open societies live in “permanent fear.”

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In a video message, Johnson said the United States was “the world’s greatest democracy,” and it was a reflection of its openness that “people of almost every nationality and religion” were among almost 3,000 people killed in the attacks. 

Johnson said the attackers “tried to destroy the faith of free peoples everywhere in the open societies which terrorists despise and which we cherish” — and failed.

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“But while the terrorists imposed their burden of grief and suffering, and while the threat persists today, we can now say with the perspective of 20 years that they failed to shake our belief in freedom and democracy; they failed to drive our nations apart, or cause us to abandon our values, or to live in permanent fear,” Johnson said.

With inputs from Associated Press