Americans rang church bells, remembered the nearly 3,000 dead and gathered to pray on Saturday to mark the third anniversary of the devastating Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

At the site of the fallen World Trade Center towers in New York, parents and grandparents of the victims solemnly read the names of victims before a large crowd, adding personal comments or blowing kisses skyward.

“We love you more today than yesterday, and we will love you more tomorrow than today,” one mother said. Musicians played softly as the names were read.

Some speakers used the day, within two months of the Nov. 2 presidential election, to make political points.

In Washington, President George W. Bush led a national moment of silence and then used his weekly radio address to mark the day.

“Three years ago, the struggle of good against evil was compressed into a single morning,” he said, describing the 102 minutes in which hijackers crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

In Boston, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee seeking to replace Bush in the White House, called for Americans to come together to fight terrorism.

“While Sept. 11 was the worst day we have ever seen, it brought out the best in all of us,” he said. “And we must always remember that we will only defeat those who sought to destroy us by standing together as one America.”

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld discussed the al Qaeda hijackers and praised the United States and Bush at a Sept. 11 memorial ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery that included a moment of silence at 9:37 a.m. when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon three years ago.

Many in the crowd carried photographs and flowers as they descended into “Ground Zero,” the World Trade Center site, from which the remains of many victims have never been recovered.

They cried and hugged one another as they floated blossoms in two small reflecting pools designed to symbolize the footprints of the two fallen 110-story towers.

Christine KEARNEY