For newspapers across the world, the bombing in Indonesia, the Beslan siege and the attacks in Madrid weigh heavily on editorial writers reflecting on the third anniversary of 9/11.

In the United States, the New York Times speaks of Americans trying to come to terms with their private memories and a public understanding of the facts.

Writers in Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia launch scathing attacks on the United States over its global role, while papers in Indonesia and Iraq are convinced of the need to pursue the war on terror.

United States

It is the nature of historic events to gain and lose complexity simultaneously. The moment vanishes, and what we are left with are impressions, re-creations and the solid residue of fact, which doesn't merely lie there waiting to be picked up but must be carefully elicited...

11 September, 2001, is a central event in this nation's history. It's important that we who live most immediately in its shadow press hard to learn everything that can be learned about that day and to make sure that nothing is allowed to fade into the world of the publicly unknowable.

The New York Times - editorial

Europe

Since 11 September 2001, terrorism has been the basic parameter of international politics... The military and police response is necessary and the networks inspired by Bin Laden have fortunately taken as many blows as they have delivered. But al-Qaeda has not disappeared, and the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq is playing into the hands of the jihadists. The war against Islamo-terrorism... cannot be won by the force of American arms alone, as is proved by each day that passes in Iraq.

France's Liberation - editorial

Images from Beslan will remain engraved in people's memories just as vividly as those of the collapsing Twin Towers. And this is just the beginning, the prelude to a world war which will know no borders or front lines. The new green fascism, Islamist fascism, is intent on fighting a war devoid of principles or morality. Where will it draw the line, when it is prepared to attack a school full of children?

France's Le Nouvel Observateur - commentary

The terrorists' driving force was hatred... hatred of freedom. What has happened since then? In the USA the patriot act has restricted civil liberties; a detention centre was built that is a mockery of democratic principles, and a war was begun on grounds that before 11 September no one would have accepted... Fear is useful. But it must not make us blind or hysterical. The world has become less free since 11 September 2001; that is unfortunately a victory for the terrorists.

Germany's Der Tagesspiegel - commentary by Harald Martenstein

Three years later, precisely because of Iraq, the transatlantic breach has grown in a worrying way El Pais

As America commemorates the third anniversary of the Twin Towers attack, al-Qaeda's number two, al-Zawahiri, has celebrated the 11 September anniversary in his own way. One is struck by a curious parallel. The two enemies interpret the two wars of the last three years - Afghanistan and Iraq - as steps in the same process. For America, these are necessary and complementary stages in the fight against global terrorism. For Osama's adviser, these are also complementary stages in Islam's fight against the USA.

Italy's Corriere della Sera - editorial

The names New York and Beslan are suddenly together as one. Fate has unexpectedly linked them with an invisible rainbow bridge of two colours - red for blood and black for grief. New York and Beslan are unwillingly twinned by two tragic events, on 11 September 2001 and 1 September this year... as if someone above feared that a cruel lesson might be forgotten and decided to remind them that evil again rules on Earth.

Russia's Moskovskiy Komsomolets - commentary by Melor Sturua

9/11 aroused a wave of sympathy and European solidarity for the United States, which Bush not only did not know how to take advantage of, but scorned. Three years later, precisely because of Iraq, the transatlantic breach has grown in a worrying way.

Spain's El Pais - editorial headlined "Getting worse"

If the al-Qaeda cancer which is spreading in the body of present-day Islam is to be removed, those Muslims who disapprove of it must do more - they must stop blaming others for their own problems and tackle the reasons why there are so many radicals whose agenda has shrunk to hatred and killing. Terrorism by fanatical Islamists is not so much a product of a clash between civilisations but rather of a crisis within one of them.

Czech Republic's Hospodarske noviny - editorial

The evil group which exploits paranoia about an Islamic threat to America provokes the USA to attack Iran, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and even Pakistan and prepares threat evaluations and occupation projects for this purpose. The 'Enlarged Axis of Evil' Project is the new work by this racist group. The 'dual containment' policy to isolate Iran, Iraq and Syria and the 'axis of evil' policy were also prepared by them.

Turkey's Yeni Safak - commentary by Ibrahim Karagul

Asia Pacific

The third anniversary of 11 September attacks. Terrorists are busy marking that milestone in blood and misery, in Indonesia as in Russia... Sometimes, there are no good choices. It has to be resisted... The monstrous inhumanity of recent days may serve to more sharply define the issues, both for Muslims and sceptics in the West. We can only hope.

Australia's The Age - commentary by Tony Parkinson, international editor

Two virtues of the American people are the courage to sacrifice oneself and the admiration of self-sacrifice Asahi Shimbun

In these three years, America's 'eye for an eye' war on terror has raged on without end, but ordinary Americans have not come out of the shadow of 9/11 for an instant. In fact, the shadow which looms over the minds of many ordinary people seems to be getting heavier.

China's People's Daily - report

The counter-terror action kindled by the 11 September attack was first manipulated by neo-conservatives, taking advantage of this opportunity they launched the long-premeditated Iraq war, in an attempt to establish a US modern 'empire'.

China's People's Daily - editorial

Having seen what has happened since 2000, the people in Indonesia must wage a war on terrorism and not just condemn it. The war on terrorism must not become simply mere rhetoric to satisfy the United States.

Indonesia's Pikiran Rakyat - editorial

Looking at the Jakarta bombing case, the harm caused by terrorists cannot be solved by one country alone, and various countries must work with concerted efforts for terrorism to be thwarted.

Malaysia's Sin Chew Daily - editorial

Two virtues of the American people are the courage to sacrifice oneself and the admiration of self-sacrifice. In the world of international politics, the United States has the strength to endure sacrifice for the benefit of attaining the goal. That is exactly why we want the Americans to know that the use of force requires wisdom. We want the United States to characterise itself as part of a diverse and multi-polar world by overcoming the narrow values of unilateralism. Washington should pay attention to the negative sides of globalisation as well and thus try to eradicate the breeding grounds of terrorism.

Japan's Asahi Shimbun editorial

South Asia

The 9/11 tragedy has all but been pushed into the background by the mayhem that has been let loose in Iraq and the blundering pursuit of an illegal war. The images from Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib have overtaken the shattering images of the Twin Towers... It is time for everyone to pause and take a deep breath and go back to the drawing board. A far greater reliance on political methods and better intelligence gathering seems the only alternative to the present total and counter-productive dependence on brute force.

Pakistan's Dawn - editorial

Middle East

Where are the ceremonies for the thousands of other innocent people who died all over the world on that very day?... The children of the Third World experience ten 9/11s every day of the year... In order to create a more just and civilised world, we need to promote a culture of rehumanisation. Establishing a global ceremony to commemorate all the innocents all over the world who died on 9/11 would certainly help to promote world peace and to create a more just global culture.

Iran's Tehran Times - editorial

Within the framework of an objective which was called 'fighting terrorism', the Americans increased the number of their military bases in the Shaykhdoms of the Persian Gulf Littoral; they gave as many weapons as they could to the usurper Israeli regime and supported it politically and financially as much as possible. And in the world of Islam, they brought maximum pressure to bear on Islamic thought and belief. Today... even some impartial US analysts are admitting that these same expansionist and adventurist objectives were behind the making of that incident.

Iran's Jomhuri-ye Eslami - editorial

The trouble with Bush is that he put America's honour above everything and regarded 11 September as a cue for the USA to behave in a way that would guarantee its position as the undisputed superpower, taking decisions regardless of its acceptance or rejection by friends and allies.

Saudi Arabia's Al-Riyadh - editorial

A jihad erecting its banners on a pile of corpses is nothing but a satanic war Al-Bayan

It is a black day, not only for the USA, but also for us here in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia... all nations worldwide, particularly the Arab and Muslim world, have been affected by the 11 September 2001 incident... The bitter truth confirms that the incidents witnessed by the world after 11 September 2001 have not and will not curb terrorism but plunge the world into more destruction and havoc.

Saudi Arabia's Ukaz - editorial

The US thirst for supremacy brought about an awful blend of terrorist actions... in response to its tendency to impose its hegemony and use force to impose its will on others.

Egypt's Al-Jumhuriyah - editorial

The time has come for Muslims before others to face up to those who want to kidnap Islam just as they kidnap innocent children. This is the real jihad of this age and this is our duty as Muslim believers towards our true religion. A "jihad" erecting its banners on a pile of corpses and body parts of children, women, elderly and innocent people is nothing but a satanic war.

Iraq's Al-Bayan - commentary by Inas Adil Shakir

Three years have elapsed since the 9/11 attacks... and one of its major results has been the strengthening of the stiff conservative wing in the US Administration.

Pan-Arab Al-Sharq al-Awsat - commentary by Adnan al-Pachachi

As a result of 11 September, Arabs and Muslims in America and Europe were arrested, detained, searched, bugged, had their homes stormed, and were subjected to other excessive violations of human rights. Freedoms in the country that contains the Statue of Liberty have been lost.

Pan-Arab Al-Sharq al-Awsat - commentary by Muhammad al-Sayyid Habib of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood

Africa

Americans are well aware that terrorism was not invented on 11 September. Far too many countries around the world have endured tragic attacks for decades and even centuries. The 11 September attacks, however, demonstrated that today's terrorists intend to strike to the limits of their power... Al-Qaeda and its affiliates offer no constructive vision for the world. Their sole mission has been to destroy what others have built through hard work and commitment.

Nigeria's Guardian - commentary by John Campell

BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.