Zohran Mamdani and 9/11: The Record Behind the Growing Backlash

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of September 11, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing an extraordinary request from some of the people most directly connected to that day.

Stay away from Ground Zero.

A petition asking organizers to reconsider Mamdani's participation in the September 11 commemoration had reached more than 109,000 signatures by September 10. More than a dozen relatives of victims gathered at City Hall this week to deliver it.

Cheri Sparacio, whose husband Thomas was killed in the South Tower, put her objection plainly.

"How can this man be at my husband's memorial? How can I stand there with him at my husband's memorial?"

The number of actual 9/11 relatives among the petition's signatories is unknown. Organizer Giovanni Galante, who lost his wife Grace at Cantor Fitzgerald, has acknowledged that organizers do not have a verified list identifying which signers are victims' relatives.

And the 9/11 community is not united against Mamdani. September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an organization representing roughly 250 relatives, has defended his right to attend and condemned what it called the "anti-American accusations and Islamophobic sentiment" surrounding the effort to exclude him.

But dismissing the entire controversy as Islamophobia avoids a much more difficult question.

What has Zohran Mamdani actually said and done?

A review of years of his own posts, speeches, interviews, political associations and mayoral actions produces a complicated record. There is no evidence that Mamdani has ever endorsed the September 11 attacks, supported Al Qaeda or said America deserved 9/11.

There is, however, a documented pattern that helps explain why some families are so angry.

Years of 9/11 Statements Without Naming the Enemy

From 2020 through 2023, Mamdani posted essentially the same message every September 11.

The 2020 version began:

"Nearly 3,000 New Yorkers died on 9/11; 19 years later, the death hasn't stopped."

He mourned "our neighbors who died that day," followed immediately by "the hundreds of thousands who died in the wars that followed" and "the unknown millions injured & displaced."

The following year, he posted the same message, changing only 19 years to 20. Then again in 2022. Then again in 2023.

There is something striking about what those statements contain, and what they do not.

The victims "died." They were not described as murdered.

There is no Al Qaeda.

No Osama bin Laden.

No jihadism or Islamist extremism.

No hijackers.

No terrorists.

And for those years, no first responders.

Instead, roughly half of the message is devoted to people killed, injured or displaced in the wars that followed September 11.

That does not prove sympathy for the terrorists. Nor does the text explicitly declare moral equivalence between the victims of 9/11 and casualties of America's subsequent wars.

But it is a choice of framing, repeated year after year.

In 2024, Mamdani changed the message. First responders appeared for the first time, while the reference to the wars remained.

In 2025, as he campaigned for mayor, the language changed dramatically again. The wars disappeared entirely. He wrote about "empty seats at our tables," people suffering from illness and "the courage and sacrifice of those we lost."

Still, the perpetrators were not named.

That pattern has continued into his mayoralty.

Across every confirmed anniversary post from 2020 through 2025 and a large sample of his official 2026 statements concerning 9/11, Mamdani has apparently never identified Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, jihadism or Islamist extremism as the enemy responsible for the attacks.

It is an absence, not proof of motive.

But after seven years, it is difficult to dismiss as a single poorly worded post.

The Anwar al-Awlaki Question

The controversy extends beyond anniversary messages.

In 2015, when Mamdani was 23, he posted a Twitter thread about Anwar al-Awlaki, the American born radical cleric who became a leading Al Qaeda propagandist.

Mamdani questioned why an article had not more seriously examined FBI surveillance of al-Awlaki.

A subsequent tweet, preserved through multiple reports, asked why there was not further discussion of how al-Awlaki's knowledge of that surveillance "eventually led" him to Al Qaeda.

The distinction matters.

Mamdani did not defend Al Qaeda. He did not excuse al-Awlaki's terrorism. And he did not say America was responsible for September 11.

But his framing placed American government conduct inside the story of al-Awlaki's radicalization.

When those posts resurfaced during the 2025 mayoral campaign, Mamdani did not publicly explain them.

"My Love to the Holy Land 5"

Two years later came another episode.

Before entering elected politics, Mamdani recorded music under the name Zohran Kwame. In his 2017 song "Salaam," about being Muslim in America, he included this lyric:

"My love to the Holy Land 5, You better look 'em up."

The Holy Land Foundation Five were convicted in a major US terrorism financing prosecution involving more than $12 million sent to Hamas.

The lyric is authentic.

What it means is a separate question. Mamdani did not say in the song that he supported Hamas or terrorism financing, and there is no evidence that he has an organizational or financial relationship with Hamas or Al Qaeda.

But "my love to the Holy Land 5" was his choice of words.

He has never publicly explained them.

Hasan Piker and "America Deserved 9/11"

Then there is Hasan Piker.

In 2019, Piker infamously said, "America deserved 9/11."

Those words were Piker's, not Mamdani's. Claims attributing them to Mamdani are false.

But Mamdani later appeared on Piker's program during his mayoral campaign and the two became politically associated enough that the issue followed Mamdani into the race.

When confronted about Piker's 9/11 remark on September 10, 2025, Mamdani declined to condemn it.

"I'm here to talk about the World Cup," he responded.

That refusal continued to haunt him.

It took roughly five weeks before Mamdani finally addressed the substance during an October mayoral debate.

"I find the comments that Hasan made on 9/11 to be objectionable and reprehensible," Mamdani said.

That condemnation matters. It means it would be false to claim Mamdani endorsed Piker's statement.

But so does the delay.

For families who lost relatives on September 11, the question is obvious: why did condemning "America deserved 9/11" require five weeks?

The Imam Mamdani Praised

Another episode came during the 2025 campaign.

Mamdani visited Masjid At-Taqwa in Brooklyn and publicly praised Imam Siraj Wahhaj as "one of the nation's foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community for nearly half a century."

Wahhaj had been named among more than 170 unindicted alleged co-conspirators in the federal case surrounding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Being named an unindicted co-conspirator is not a conviction, and Wahhaj was never charged with participating in the bombing.

That distinction is essential.

What makes the episode relevant is that Mamdani did more than simply appear at the same event. He publicly praised Wahhaj.

For critics already troubled by Mamdani's language around Islamist terrorism, that was another piece of the pattern.

Then Came Ramzi Kassem

After winning the mayoralty, Mamdani appointed CUNY law professor Ramzi Kassem as his chief counsel.

Kassem had spent years representing Guantanamo detainees, including Ahmed al-Darbi.

Al-Darbi pleaded guilty to terrorism related charges involving maritime attacks. His sister was married to Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the 9/11 hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon.

Al-Darbi himself was never charged with participating in 9/11.

Kassem served as his chosen civilian defense attorney alongside assigned military counsel.

That fact should not be distorted. The American legal system guarantees even accused terrorists a defense, and representing a terrorist does not make the attorney a supporter of terrorism.

The relevant decision was Mamdani's.

Of all the lawyers he could have selected as one of the most powerful legal advisers in City Hall, he chose Kassem.

The issue became even more explosive last week when Mamdani signed executive orders related to September 11 preparedness and remembrance. After the signing, one of the ceremonial pens was passed to Kassem.

There is no evidence Mamdani intended that as an insult. City Hall says Kassem's team helped draft the orders, which provides an ordinary explanation for receiving a signing pen.

But to families already furious about Kassem's appointment, the optics were extraordinary.

Mamdani's Language Has Changed as Mayor

There is another part of this record that cannot simply be ignored.

Mayor Mamdani in September 2026 sounds considerably different from Assemblyman Mamdani several years ago.

He has visited the FDNY firehouse that lost 19 members on September 11.

He has honored firefighters who later died from 9/11 related illnesses.

He has repeatedly used the words "Never Forget."

He signed an executive order establishing September 11 as an official Day of Remembrance and Service in New York City.

His administration released approximately 170,000 pages of city records concerning the health consequences of Ground Zero.

He has pushed for federal counterterrorism funding.

And he now explicitly calls September 11 terrorism.

Asked about the campaign to keep him away from Ground Zero, Mamdani said:

"I will proudly honor the families, the survivors, the first responders forever impacted by that horrific terror attack by standing alongside them at this year's 9/11 commemoration."

This week he went further.

"I'm proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country."

He said the anniversary should focus on families "whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11th" and on the first responders "who gave everything they could to this city."

Those are not the words of someone celebrating 9/11.

Any serious examination of his record has to acknowledge that.

But there remains a remarkable omission.

Even now, Mamdani still does not appear to name the ideology or organization that carried out the attack.

The Argument Is Not Really About One Tweet

This is why the controversy surrounding Mamdani and September 11 cannot honestly be reduced to either of the slogans being thrown around.

There is no evidence that Zohran Mamdani supported 9/11.

There is also no need to invent such evidence in order to ask difficult questions about his record.

The real issue is the accumulation.

The repeated anniversary posts that discussed America's subsequent wars but never named Al Qaeda.

The suggestion that FBI surveillance played a role in al-Awlaki's path toward Al Qaeda.

"My love to the Holy Land 5."

The public praise of Siraj Wahhaj.

The weeks spent avoiding a direct condemnation of Hasan Piker's "America deserved 9/11" remark.

The appointment of Ramzi Kassem.

None, individually, proves that Mamdani sympathizes with terrorists.

Together, however, they explain why some people who buried husbands, wives, parents and children after September 11 look at New York's mayor and see something profoundly different from an ordinary political disagreement.

That anger cannot simply be wished away by calling it Islamophobia.

Neither can the other side of the record be erased.

Mamdani has condemned Piker's 9/11 statement. He calls September 11 a horrific terrorist attack. He honors first responders. His administration has acted on counterterrorism funding, preparedness, 9/11 health records and remembrance. There is no documented evidence tying him to Al Qaeda or establishing that he supports terrorism.

The more defensible criticism is narrower, and perhaps more important.

For years, when Zohran Mamdani spoke about September 11, he repeatedly found words for what America did afterward.

He repeatedly found words for surveillance.

He found words for war.

He found words for Islamophobia.

But across years of public statements, he somehow never found the words "Al Qaeda" or "Osama bin Laden."

Twenty five years after September 11, with Mamdani preparing to stand at Ground Zero as mayor of the city that was attacked, that omission is no longer something his critics are willing to overlook.