In Tokyo, yellow-robed Buddhist monks led a group of 20 people to pray for peace outside the US embassy and to protest against war in Iraq.

Environmental group Planet Ark joined Americans to plant 3,000 native trees in a Sydney park in memory of those killed when suicide hijackers flew airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.

Casting a shadow over the commemorations was a new videotape showing al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden praising those strikes. It underscored just how much remains to be achieved in the war on terror declared by President Bush two years ago.

"The attacks on the US did indeed rouse the 'mighty giant' Bush spoke of at the time," said Hong Kong's South China Morning Post in an editorial.

"But the world's only remaining superpower must realise that the 'with us, or against us' approach, and in particular the further use of aggression, will only fuel the hatred which motivated the attacks in the first place."

These were sentiments echoed around Asia, and served as a reminder of US military actions that have divided the world.

"Is its (America's) purported desire to tackle global threats to security actually an operation to zero in to threats to American security alone?" said The Indian Express. "Is talk of coalitions of the willing simply a cover for American unilateralism?"

The Australian parliament observed a minute's silence in memory of those who died. In Hong Kong, the US consulate lowered its flag to half-mast.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard told television: "This war against terrorism is likely to go on for years and nobody can regard themselves as beyond the reach of terrorism."

Howard's views were questioned by newspapers across Asia.

In Malaysia, a mostly Muslim nation that quickly allied with Washington in the war on terror, more recent attitudes were reflected in an opinion column in the New Straits Times.

"No bells toll for the victims of unbelievable Israeli savagery," wrote Shad S. Faruqi.

Yogo Nomoto, a 37-year-old local government worker in Tokyo, summed up the feelings of many as he stood at the US embassy.

"When the terrorism occurred, I think people all over the world sympathized with the United States. But I think the United States has lost its power with its acts over the following two years," he said.

Many remembered with sympathy.

"I still feel for the American victims. The United States has since become more aggressive, but that's due partly to the September 11 attacks," said Hong Kong trader Ashley Wong.

Editorials were more outspoken about the fallout from the response by the United States that has drawn its army into quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan and yet has failed to net bin Laden, the suspected September 11 mastermind.

"Two years after September 11...America instead goes toward a path of self-isolation and being unilateral in action," said an editorial in Vietnam's People's Army newspaper.

Australia's Sydney Morning Herald was more outspoken.

"The goodwill of America's allies has been squandered," it wrote. "The threat represented by the terrible attacks of two years ago remains."

In Indonesia, site of the world's worst post-September 11 attacks when bombs killed 202 in Bali nightclubs last October, the Jakarta Post took a similar tone.

"There is also the fear that, unless it is carefully managed, the war against terrorism is likely to be perceived in the Islamic world as a crusade against them," it said.

Muhammad Akbar, a resident of the southern Afghan border town of Spin Boldak, said he was glad the attacks had resulted in the US defeat of the Taliban, the chief protectors of bin Laden.

"The Taliban had sullied the name of Islam and it was September 11 terrorism that made them the focus of the world. Now the United States should focus on Afghanistan's reconstruction," he said.

France's Le Monde ran a headline after September 11, 2001, saying everyone felt American. Thursday, its editorial on Washington ran: "Compassion has given way to the fear that ill-considered actions are aggravating the problems and that the fight against terrorism is a pretext to extend US hegemony."

Australian Charlotte Osman, who planted one of the trees in the Sydney park, was working within sight of the World Trade Centre and saw the second aircraft hit.

"It's hard each year, last year I climbed the (Sydney Harbour) bridge, this year I'm planting trees, something to say 'I'm still here I'm not afraid'," she told Reuters television.