Mourners worldwide marked the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on Sunday with memorials and calls for peace, while in New York, grieving family members planned to read the names of the 2,749 victims out loud at ground zero.
In Italy, Pope Benedict XVI marked the anniversary by calling for a global renunciation of hatred and for men and women to build a world of justice and peace.
"Today, 11 September, we remember the victims of terrorist violence throughout the world," Benedict said on Sunday from the papal summer palace at Castel Gandolfo south of Rome.
"May God inspire men and women of good will everywhere to renounce hatred and to build a world of justice, solidarity and peace," he said.
In Germany, a memorial service was held for the victims of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina in Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, a landmark left only partly restored after suffering bomb damage in World War II -- as a reminder of the evils of war.
United States Ambassador William Timken was attending the interfaith service.
Some 50,000 people took to the streets in the southern Russian city of Volgograd to mark the anniversary, forming a 40-km-long human chain, news reports said.
Marchers chanted "We choose peace!" and "No to terrorism," Russia's Interfax and RIA Novosto news agencies said.