A small somber crowd gathered to watch U.S. President Barack Obama lay a wreath at ground zero in New York today.
He laid a wreath in front of the WTC memorial Freedom Tower during the silent tribute. Then he spoke quietly to some of the family members of the thousands of victims.
Obama deliberately kept the ceremony low key so as not to upset or offend the Muslim world — many of whom were busy burning American flags in protest of the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
It was Mr. Obama’s first pilgrimage as president to the site where the World Trade Center Towers were felled by Al Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001.
Navy SEAL forces stormed a fortified compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan in the early morning hours of Monday, May 2, and executed bin Laden.
Reportedly, they had been given orders to take him alive only if he was naked due to fears that he might be wearing a suicide bomb vest under his pajamas.
Obama invited former President George W Bush to the ceremony today. But Bush declined the invitation, reportedly because Obama was claiming all the credit for the kill.
Bush laid the groundwork for bin Laden’s capture by water boarding bin Laden’s Al Qaeda associates in 2005. One of them eventually gave up the name of bin Laden’s most trusted courier, with whom bin Laden was living.
