124,000 killed by terror since 9/11

GRIEF: Barack Obama hugs a young woman yesterday as they grieve together for the victims of 9/11. PHOTO: EPA/Olivier Douliery / Pool

Attack's real toll

By Paul McNamara, Defence Correspondent, 12/09/2010

A SILENT world watched as the names of the 2,973 victims of 9/11 were read out in New York yesterday - but THOUSANDS more should be added to the list.

GRIEF: Firefighter cries. PHOTO: AP

For the true death toll is at least 123,870 people... all of whose fates were sealed on the day the Twin Towers were attacked in 2001.

They include the 6,808 soldiers, 502 of them British, 1,661 contractors, and 111,817 civilians killed since by terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

There's also the 52 victims of the London bombings of July 7, 2005, and another 569 who died in the Bali (2002), Madrid (2004) and Mumbai (2008) terror attacks.

And the staggering figures, the result of a huge study by US and UK academics, do not include the thousands more slaughtered in terrorist outrages in Pakistan, Indonesia, Africa and elsewhere.

FLOWERS: PM's tribute. PHOTO: Fiona Hansen/PA

But today family members of some of the British victims joined together to say: "Don't let them die in vain."

Peter Hammond, from Plymouth, whose soldier son Josh, 18, was blown up in Afghanistan last year, said: "Josh was only 10 when 9/11 happened, but ultimately it would be the reason he died.

"But my son was part of something special - a movement to tell all the backers of 9/11 and all other terrorist acts since then that this world does not condone them, and will never stop doing all we can for peace."

Bill Stewardson, of Sheffield - whose son Alex, 21, was shot in Iraq in 2007 - said: "He knew the risk he faced, but he believed in what was going on."

A nation in mourning

Barack Obama hugged a young woman yesterday as they grieved together for the victims of 9/11.

U-TURN: Pastor Jones. PHOTO: Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images

The President had just laid a wreath at the Pentagon in memory of the 184 people killed there when terrorists crashed a jet into the building in 2001.

It was part of a national day of mourning for the US, and came as the pastor threatening to hold a public burning of Islamic holy book the Koran was forced into a climbdown. Terry Jones told US TV: "We will definitely not burn the Koran, not today, not ever."

But at Ground Zero, a unnamed man was seeing burning pages from the Koran, and a small group of conservative Christians tore pages from the holy book outside the White House.

HOTHEAD: Koran burner. PHOTO: Reuters/Swoan Parker