Defiance, sympathy, sorrow: World marks three months since terror in U.S.

By DAVID McHUGH
Associated Press Writer

LANDSTUHL, Germany – The band struck up "The Star Spangled Banner" exactly three months to the minute when the first of two hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center. But the sound was muted for Capt. Jason Amerine.

Amerine's eardrums were damaged during fighting last week in Afghanistan, where he also lost three of his men to an errant American bomb. For the 30-year-old Hawaiian, there are many reasons the attacks of Sept. 11 are never far from his mind.

"Our fallen will not be forgotten," Amerine said. "September 11 will not be forgotten."

Remembering was the purpose of ceremonies held around the world on Tuesday, services like the small one at this U.S. military hospital in Germany where Amerine and his men are being treated. In more than 70 nations, the message was the same.

"The world witnessed a horrific event without parallel in human history," said U.S. Ambassador Robert Blackwill at a ceremony in New Delhi, India, attended by about 300 people. "Because of that experience, we will forever be marked."

President Bush called for the worldwide observation of the anniversary after Syed Tayyab Agha, spokesman for Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, said in late November that the United States should move on and "forget the Sept. 11 attacks."

As Bush delivered a live address from the White House, people gathered at ground zero in lower Manhattan. The fight against terror has just begun, the president said. "We still have far to go and many dangers lie ahead."

In London, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair, a staunch American ally in the fight against terrorism, was joined by Secretary of State Colin Powell for a ceremony outside Blair's Downing Street office.

A group of musicians from the American School of London played both countries' anthems.

Diplomats gathered at the residence of U.S. Ambassador Tom Schieffer in Australia and remembered the deaths by planting a symbol of life: an oak sapling descended from a tree Eleanor Roosevelt planted at the American Embassy in 1943.

A plaque will be placed at the base of the tree: "September 11, 2001, we will remember them."

Senior Japanese government officials joined U.S. Embassy staff in Tokyo at Ambassador Howard Baker's residence to listen to a U.S. Air Force choir give mournful renditions of the American and Japanese national anthems.

Some 80 foreign diplomats and South Korean government officials gathered in a Methodist church in Seoul for a 30-minute memorial service.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller, speaking outside the U.S. embassy in Copenhagen, expressed his country's continued support for the U.S.-led war against terrorism sparked by the Sept. 11 attacks. "This horrible act was an assault on humanity itself and the entire democratic world community."

AP-WS-12-11-01 1155EST