Mamdani To Attend 9/11 Ceremony Despite Awkward Ties To Terrorist Sympathizers

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Monday he intends to attend Friday’s 25th-anniversary 9/11 remembrance ceremony at Ground Zero, brushing aside public objections from former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Gov. George Pataki, both of whom have urged him to stay home.

Speaking ahead of Brooklyn’s West Indian American Day Parade, which already saw three stabbings as of Monday morning, Mamdani told reporters he would use the week to spotlight “the families whose loved ones were stolen from them” and the first responders who died trying to save others. He would become the first Muslim mayor to attend the city’s official ceremony.

Giuliani, appearing on Newsmax over the weekend, said he would be personally offended if Mamdani showed up, and accused the mayor of doubting that the attacks constituted terrorism. Pataki has separately said Mamdani should either disavow “extremist views against America” in his political orbit or skip the ceremony out of deference to victims’ families.

The backlash has been fueled in large part by Mamdani’s chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, who previously served as a defense lawyer for Ahmed al-Darbi, an al Qaeda operative held at Guantanamo Bay whose brother-in-law helped hijack the plane that struck the Pentagon. Kassem was present Friday when Mamdani signed executive orders establishing an annual “Citywide Day of Remembrance and Service” and video of Mamdani passing a ceremonial signing pen to Kassem afterward drew condemnation from city officials including New York City Council Member Vicki Paladino, who said Kassem “doesn’t even belong in this country, much less in our government,” according to the New York Post.

The Kassem controversy is only the latest example of Mamdani’s association with figures tied to Islamist extremism. The Daily Wire previously documented Mamdani’s visit to a Brooklyn mosque led by Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator named in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing case who has called America “filthy” and praised martyrdom in “jihad.” Mamdani hailed Wahhaj at the time as “one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders.”

Vice President JD Vance is expected to attend Friday’s ceremony; President Donald Trump will not. Security officials plan to install fencing and checkpoints around the World Trade Center site later this week ahead of the anniversary.