A young boy walks through a field of 3,000 US flags placed in memory of the lives lost in the September 11, 2001 attacks, at a park in Winnetka, Illinois, on Saturday. Photo: CFP

Fifteen years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the world has not rid itself of terrorism, and the wars launched by the US and the subsequent Arab Spring have aggravated terror attacks and led to other global issues such as the refugee crisis, analysts said.

The US prepared to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the attacks on Sunday with the recital of the names of the dead, tolling church bells and a tribute in lights at the site where New York City's twin towers tumbled.

The ceremony for the 2,983 victims will be punctuated by six moments of silence, four of which mark the exact times four hijacked planes were flown into the two World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. and a Pennsylvania field. The last two mark the moments when the north and south towers of the World Trade Center collapsed.

The ceremony will be held at the 9/11 Memorial plaza in Lower Manhattan, where two reflecting pools with waterfalls now stand in the twin towers' former footprints, watched over by an honor guard of police and firefighters.

As evening falls across the city on Sunday, spotlights will project two giant beams of light into the night sky to represent the fallen twin towers, fading away at dawn.

No end in sight

But in spite of the strong reaction against terrorism following the 9/11 attacks, the world has seen an increasing number of terrorist attacks over the past decade.

The US has not been immune, as the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 and the Times Square car bombing attempt in 2010 proved. In recent years, countries like France and Belgium have suffered several terror attacks. Throughout Europe, which has faced increasing migration from the Middle East and North Africa amid regional instability, hate speech against Islam and Muslims seems to be on the rise.

But South Asian and Middle Eastern countries are still the largest victims of rising terrorist attacks. According to the Global Terrorism Index 2015, terrorist attacks killed more than 32,600 people in 2014 - an 80 percent increase over 2013 - with 78 percent of casualties occurring in Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Pakistan and Syria.

Zhang Jiadong, a professor with the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, believes the rise in the number of terrorist attacks is more or less related to the US' attempt to play the terrorism card to maintain its hegemony.

"When the US won the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it was overwhelmed with success and attempted to rebuild regional order by promoting democracy. Its focus on political ideals made it overlook rebuilding efforts in the two countries, providing opportunities for terrorists," Zhang told the Global Times.

He noted that the US changed its security strategy when Barack Obama took office, listing Russia and China as its primary threats and further straining international alignment against terrorism.

Chinese impact

Terrorist attacks have also been on the rise in China in the 15 years since the 9/11 attacks. The separatist World Uyghur Congress-backed July 5, 2009 riot in Urumqi, Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region killed 197 people and injured 1,700. On March 1, 2014, a mass stabbing at a railway station in Kunming, Southwest China's Yunnan Province, killed 29 people.

The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), previously listed by the UN Security Council as a terrorist group, remains the largest terrorist threat in China, and many terrorist attacks are believed to be linked to the organization.

The ETIM claimed responsibility for the attack on Tian'anmen Square in Beijing in October 2013, in which five people were killed and 40 others injured.

According to a press service from the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security, the August 30 attack on the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan was allegedly organized by an ETIM member, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

In 2004, the US removed ETIM from the list of international terrorist organizations, citing human rights conditions in Xinjiang.

Nevertheless, it seems that the situation is improving after bilateral exchange and cooperation increased in recent years. In September, after Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping's meeting at the G20 Leaders Summit, the US agreed to list the ETIM as a terrorist group and to support its inclusion in the UN Al-Qaida Sanctions list.

Reuters contributed to this story