President Gotabaya Rajapaksa , who is in the United States , attended the special commemorative event organized in front of the Manhattan Memorial  to mark the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Washington and New York. The terrorist attacks took place on September 11, 2001, targeting the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defence. 
The United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism and the 9/11 Memorial Museum jointly organized the event.