Boris Johnson Says 9/11 Attacks "Failed to Shake our Belief in Freedom and Democracy"

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said the 9/11 attacks “failed to shake our belief in freedom and democracy” in a video statement released on the 20th anniversary of September 11.

Johnson said in the video, posted on September 11: “On a crystal clear morning terrorists attacked the United States with the simple goal of killing or maiming as many human beings as possible. And by inflicting such bloodshed in the world’s greatest democracy, they tried to destroy the faith of free peoples everywhere in the open societies which terrorists despise and which we cherish.

“And it’s precisely because of the openness and tolerance of the United States that people of almost every nationality and religion were among the 2,977 murdered on that day, including 67 Britons, each of them a symbol of the eternal friendship between the United Kingdom and the United States.

“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 to cause us to abandon our values or to live in permanent fear. The fact that we are coming together today – in sorrow but also in faith and resolve – demonstrates the failure of terrorism and the strength of the bonds between us." Credit: @BorisJohnson via Storyful