Tears flowed and bells tolled at Ground Zero on Sunday as Americans marked the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in a rare moment of unity for a country still shaken by the horrific attacks.

President Barack Obama and his predecessor and political foe George W. Bush stood together in New York for the main ceremony at the site of the destroyed Twin Towers.

Obama then flew on to lay wreaths at the crash site of Flight 93 in Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon outside Washington.

At Ground Zero, the Stars and Stripes fluttered from cranes used in the massive project to rebuild the World Trade Center, while below, relatives of the 2,977 victims of the attacks brushed fingertips across the names of their loved ones etched in bronze around a new memorial.

With federal officials warning of a new terrorism scare, lower Manhattan was under police lockdown. Security in other major cities was also tight, as Obama called for a "heightened state of vigilance."

The ceremony began in New York with a procession of bagpipers and singing of the national anthem, before a bell signaled the first of six moments of silence marking the times when the four hijacked airplanes hit their targets and the Twin Towers collapsed.

The sky over the Big Apple was initially clear, recalling the brilliant backdrop to the horrific surprise attack on the World Trade Center, where 2,753 of the day's victims, including 343 firefighters, died in the inferno of collapsing skyscrapers.

As every year since September 11, 2001, relatives of the dead took turns reading out the names, a heartbreaking litany accompanied by virtuoso cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Readers fought to keep emotions in check as they pronounced loved ones' names. "I've stopped crying, but I haven't stopped missing my dad. He was awesome," one young man said.

"From the depth of my soul," a sobbing woman called out to her deceased husband, "we will always miss you." The ceremony ended nearly five hours later with the playing of "taps" by uniformed buglers.

Reflecting a growing sense that it is time to turn a corner from 9/11, the Ground Zero ritual this time was accompanied by signs of optimism.

Instead of the chaotic-looking construction site and vast pit that scarred lower Manhattan for years, the ceremony now features a gleaming, three-quarter-built One World Trade Center tower and other signs of progress.

Sunday also saw the dedication of a simple, but moving monument consisting of massive fountains sunk into the footprints of the former towers, with the names of the dead inscribed around the edges.

Obama praised the design, saying it "meets the moment," according to a spokesman.

The president, who also declared "Al-Qaeda is on the path to defeat," then flew to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, site of the crash of Flight 93.

The 40 victims of that hijacking have often been overlooked in the bigger dramas of the strikes on the Pentagon and the Twin Towers. But they were remembered Sunday as heroes for overpowering their assailants, crashing the plane before its apparent target of nearby Washington.

"Their uprising marked the moment in history when Americans showed what makes us different. We know there are things more important than our own lives -- chief among them, freedom," Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett said.

Obama's last stop was at US military headquarters where earlier Vice President Joe Biden attended a ceremony honoring the 184 people who died when a hijacked airliner smashed into the exterior of the Pentagon complex.

"The 9/11 generation ranks among the greatest our nation has ever produced," Biden said.

The 9/11 remembrances unite Americans like almost no other event. According to a poll last week, 97 percent of people remember where they were when they heard the news, on a par with John F. Kennedy's assassination.

This year's event also follows the stunning news in May that US Navy SEALs had flown into Pakistan and shot dead Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.

Yet while Al-Qaeda is severely weakened and New York is recovering physically, the anniversary still finds a nation struggling to overcome the longer-term impacts of the last decade, including a stumbling economy and an over-extended military.

In Afghanistan, where ceremonies were held Sunday at the Bagram air base and the US embassy in Kabul, US troops are stuck in a seemingly unwinnable war against a Taliban guerrilla movement few Americans understand.

"Some back home ask, why are we here? It has been a long fight and people are tired," US Ambassador Ryan Crocker said at the US embassy. "The reason is simple: Al-Qaeda is not here in Afghanistan, and that's because we are."

The Taliban said Saturday that the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan by the United States and its allies "will remain a permanent stigma on the face of Western democracy."

Early Sunday, the US Army said 50 American soldiers were among 89 people wounded when a suicide bomber driving a truck attacked an advance NATO combat post in central Afghanistan on Saturday.

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