Top US officials warned the country late Tuesday to prepare itself for a massive death toll, probably running into thousands, after terrorist attacks on major public buildings in New York and Washington, said AFP.
But, as rescue workers sifted through the rubble of New York's World Trade Center late at night, there was no way of telling how many of the 40,000 people who worked there might still be under the ruins, and authorities ruled out a detailed toll before Wednesday.
"Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror," President George W. Bush said in a prime-time televised address from the Oval Office, less than 12 hours after four airliners were hijacked and flown on kamikaze missions towards their targets.
The New York city fire department said over 300 firefighters were missing "that we can't account for" more than 12 hours after they tried to evacuate injured people from the burning twin towers of the World Trade Center.
A union spokesman quoted by NY1 television said "whole companies (of firefighters) have disappeared" as they strove to extricate the injured before the towers collapsed about an hour after two hijacked planes flew into them at the start of the working day.
Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said 32 or 33 police officers were unaccounted for, but NY1 television later said 73 policemen were feared dead.
In Washington, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said "many dozens of people" aboard a hijacked airliner must have died when the plane slammed into the Pentagon.
Later in the day, CNN television quoted an unnamed Arlington County official saying that up to 800 people were believed to have been killed at the Pentagon.
About 20,000 people work at the Pentagon.
According to NBC News, fire officials had put the number of dead at about 800, including the 64 people on the hijacked plane that rammed the complex.
The fourth plane, carrying 45 passengers and crew, crashed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Earlier in the day, Jim Moran, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives, told Fox television that authorities were expecting a death toll of 10,000 in New York alone.
But New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani told a news conference: "We don't want to speculate on that, we won't know until tomorrow."
He added, however, that "the number of casualties will be more than any of us can bear ultimately."
New York State governor George Pataki told a television interviewer: "The time for counting is later; the time for action is now."
More than 10 hours after the attacks, the only firm and final figures had been issued by the two airlines which lost four passenger jets carrying a combined total of 266 passengers and crew.
United Airlines said its Flight UA 175, a Boeing 767 aircraft, crashed after leaving Boston for Los Angeles.
The plane, carrying 56 passengers, two pilots and seven flight attendants, is believed to have smashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center shortly before 9:00 am (1300 GMT).
Another United flight, number UA 93, a Boeing 757 aircraft with 38 passengers, two pilots and five flight attendants aboard, crashed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after leaving Newark, New Jersey, for San Francisco.
American Airlines said it lost its Flight 11, a Boeing 767 en route from Boston to Los Angeles with 81 passengers, nine flight attendants and two pilots. CNBC television said that flight hit the World Trade Center's south tower.
American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 operating from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles with 58 passengers, four flight attendants and two pilots, was reported to have hit the Pentagon.
FIVE ARABS IDENTIFIED AS SUSPECTS
Security officials in the US state of Massachusetts identified at least five Arab men as suspects in the latest terrorist attacks in Washington and New York, seizing a car laden with Arabic-language flight training manuals, The Boston Herald reported Wednesday, cited by AFP.
Two of the men, whose passports were traced to the United Arab Emirates, were brothers, one of whom was a trained pilot, said the paper, quoting sources close to the investigation.
At least two other suspects flew to Boston's Logan International Airport Tuesday from Portland, Maine, where authorities believe they had traveled after crossing over from Canada, according to the report.
Once in the air, the hijackers in one plane began killing flight attendants in order to lure a pilot from the cockpit and seize the plane, The Herald reported.
There was no indication whether those events took place on the American Airlines flight that originated at Logan, or the United Airlines flight.
Both planes ploughed into the World Trade Center roughly an hour after they departed Boston.
The suspects had no guns, but used shaving kits and other carry-on luggage to smuggle knife-like weapons, according to the report.
Authorities were led to the rental car by a civilian who got into an altercation with several Arab men as they were parking their car at a Boston garage, the Herald reported.
US EXPERTS: ONLY ONE MAN CAN DO THIS
According to the Christian Monitor, the list of suspects behind the unprecedented attacks is a very short one, with only the name: Ossama bin Laden.
Counterterrorism experts told the paper that bin Laden “had the motive - and capability - to carry out terrorist attacks of this magnitude.”
"From the scale and obvious coordination, it seems clear that a major group is responsible - and like most people, I'm betting on Osama bin Laden," says a former analyst who worked in the CIA's counterterrorism unit. "The fact that he signaled a major hit three weeks ago suggests his organization is responsible."
However, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia denied that their "guest bin Laden, was responsible for the multiple terrorist attacks in the United States.
According to Kyodo News, Bin Laden has denied involvement in Tuesday's terrorist attacks but supported them as a "reaction of the oppressed against the oppressor," quoting the Islamabad-based newspaper Ausaf, known to be the mouthpiece of Islamic militants.
An article bearing the byline of the paper's editor said a special spokesman of Bin Laden read out a statement in which the alleged terrorist said he was not involved in the plane attacks.
There are other groups, of course, who could be responsible, experts told the Monitor.
There are many groups in the Mideast angry with the US over its Israel policies. And there are the mass demonstrations at the recent World Bank meeting in Washington. Most of the demonstrators were peaceful, but "there are groups committed to violence - both anti-capitalist and anti-military. The question is though, whether they have the capabilities or resources. They probably have the resolve, but that's it," an expert said.
The logic behind this thinking, and that of other experts in this area, is that to carry out the massive attacks that were leveled against American targets, a great deal of organizational skills, planning, and resources went into the operation.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat condemned the attacks and groups denied any link to them.
There had been two unconfirmed claims for responsibility: one by the Japanese Red Army and the other by a Kashmiri separatist group.
US FORCES AND EMBASSIES ON ALERT AFTER PLANE STRIKES
The US military went on a worldwide alert Wednesday as the devastating plane strikes on New York and Washington sent security shockwaves around the globe.
Bush ordered troops to be placed on Force Protection Condition Delta, the Defense Department's highest alarm level, according to US military officials in Asia, said a separate report by AFP.
Immediate restrictions were put on the movements of the 37,000 US troops in South Korea and 54,000 in Japan, military officials said.
South Korea also put its entire 670,000 army on alert and the Taiwanese and Philippines governments boosted security at strategic points, as embassies and other potential US targets across Asia were put under heavy guard.
The South Korean and Japanese governments, both key US allies, ordered special meetings of their national security councils.
All leave was cancelled for US troops in South Korea and Japan who were restricted to base and banned from outside trips to classes, bars and night clubs, military officials were quoted as saying.
ALL WORLD ON ALERT
Other nations followed suit, according to the CNN.com.
European Union foreign ministers said they would hold emergency talks on Wednesday while NATO ambassadors were holding an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday night to discuss the wave of attacks.
NATO Secretary-General George Robertson urged all non-essential personnel to leave the alliance's headquarters in Brussels and said they should not report to work on Wednesday.
But the focus of the many security measures introduced across the international community centered on airports and embassies, with many international airlines scrambling to divert or cancel flights to the United States.
The cancellations and diversions caused confusion and congestion at many European airports, where airlines ordered flights bound for the United States to do U-turns or find alternate landing points outside America.
Some airlines reversed course only after being denied permission to land by the Federal Aviation Administration, which took the unprecedented step of ordering the complete shut down of US air space, said the report.
Similar air space closures were implemented by Canada, Britain and Belgium, where commercial flights over their capitals of London and Brussels were banned, said the CNN.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair said: "No flights will take off from the UK for which we cannot apply the highest standards of security for aircrew and passengers.
"Private flights have been stopped except where specifically authorized."
In Canada, Prime Minister Jean Chretien said: "Everyone has increased the level of security everywhere...here in Canada we have increased security adequately.
In France, armed troops were deployed at airports and metro stations. Border controls have increased.
In Germany, the Interior Ministry said it had set up a cross-ministerial crisis committee, while security was increased at government and US and Israeli installations across the country.
Israel closed its air space to foreign planes, closed land crossings and evacuated staff from diplomatic missions and Jewish institutions around the world.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said Israel has declared a day of mourning Wednesday. "We are with America, we feel like America," Peres told The Associated Press.
In Mexico, officials at Aeromexico and Mexicana airlines said all flights from Mexico to the United States, and all flights that cross US airspace, had been cancelled.
World Bank President James Wolfensohn told CNN it will be some days before he makes a decision about canceling or postponing the IMF/World Bank annual meetings, scheduled for September 29-30 – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
