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U.S. targets terrorist suspects
September 13, 2001 Posted: 1:29 PM EDT (1729 GMT)
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New York University students attend a candlelight vigil for victims of the World Trade Center terrorist attack at New York's Washington Square Park on Wednesday.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Law enforcement officials have told CNN there may have been as many as 50 people involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist hijackings and attacks that toppled the World Trade Center's two towers and damaged the Pentagon on Tuesday.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said the FBI was working on "thousands and thousands of leads" in the investigation of Tuesday's terror attacks in New York and
Washington. While there have been no arrests, he said authorities have
interviewed many people.
A total of 18 hijackers were on the planes involved in the attacks, as well as the hijacking that ended when a United Airlines jet crashed into a Pennsylvania field, Ashcroft said. There were five on each of two planes and four each on the other two.
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President Bush, who defined the attacks as "acts of war" against the United States, won bipartisan support Wednesday from both houses of Congress, which passed a resolution declaring the nation was "entitled to respond under international law."
Meanwhile, the search for survivors continues in the rubble at New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Latest developments
Searchers Thursday found one of the so-called "black boxes" from United Airlines Flight 93, the hijacked airliner that crashed in western Pennsylvania.
The recorder is being sent to the National Transportation Safety Board in
Washington for analysis.
U.S. airspace reopened to commercial and private
flights Thursday but no international carriers were being allowed in from
overseas. Only American-based airlines were being allowed to fly into the
United States from abroad.
New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Thursday that the list of people missing in the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center towers had grown to 4,763. The mayor said that 94 bodies had been recovered, 46 of them identified. The mayor said more than 6,000 tons of debris have been removed from the
scene so far. It was being transported to the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten
Island, where FBI and police officials plan to sort through and analyze it.
President Bush accepted an invitation from Gov. George Pataki and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to observe the damage in New York; he will arrive Friday afternoon.
Dover Air Force Base in Delaware has begun receiving bodies of victims killed in Tuesday's terrorist attack that sent a passenger jet crashing into the Pentagon, officials tell CNN. The remains are being brought to the port mortuary to be processed and identified "in the most honorable way by our mortuary affairs personnel," said spokeswoman Staff Sgt. Jennifer Hall. The Pentagon death toll resulting from Tuesday's hijacked plane crash has reached 190, including a three-star Army general, Pentagon sources said Thursday.
White House and Air Force One may have been targets of the terrorists responsible for the Pentagon attack, according to White House officials. That is why President Bush was flown from Florida to several military bases until his security in Washington could be guaranteed. Officials say the jet that slammed into the Pentagon may have been originally destined for the White House.
NATO ambassadors meeting in Brussels approved the invocation of NATO's self-defense charter if Tuesday's terrorist attacks in the United States prove to have been directed from abroad. Article V, the heart of the NATO's charter, says that an armed attack against one of NATO's members is considered an attack against all of them. "For the first time in its 52-year history, NATO has recognized an attack on one is an attack on all and therefore that all members of NATO stand ready to give such assistance as is required," said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.
Nations across the globe are reporting dead and
missing in the U.S. terror attacks. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Thursday at least 100 British citizens have been confirmed dead in the U.S. terror attacks. Acting Australian Prime Minister John Anderson said three Australians in New York have been confirmed dead and about 75 were still missing. Japan reports that it has 100 nationals still unaccounted for. Twenty-seven South Koreans were listed as missing. One Korean was on the hijacked United Airlines plane from Boston. Notimex, the Mexican news agency, is reporting at least 12 Mexicans cannot be accounted for. There were 100 to 150 Mexicans working at the World Trade Center.
The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday there is nothing dangerous in the smoke plume hanging over New York City from the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center towers. The EPA tested for lead, asbestos and volatile organic compounds. All three compounds were found to be at "non-detectable levels," said EPA spokeswoman Tina Kreisher. She said the people who need to be concerned are the workers on the ground who are visiting the site over and over. The EPA is supplying the necessary gear to protect all the workers on the ground.
U.S. stocks will begin trading at 9:30 a.m. ET, Monday, six days after terrorists fatally attacked the financial center of the
world, market officials said. The resumption will bring an end to a four-day trading suspension, the longest since World War I, as officials weighed safety against the need to return to the business of Wall Street.
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