Search intensifies for victims, suspects
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN
The New York Times
NEW YORK -- Rescuers on Wednesday combed mountains of rubble at what had been the World Trade Center in a grim search for survivors among the thousands presumed dead in its collapse.
Rescuers remove rubble to rescue survivors and recover victims Wednesday where the World Trade Center once stood. On the day after hijackers commandeered commercial jetliners and crashed them into two of the most visible symbols of America's financial and military might, President Bush condemned the attacks while investigators began piecing together leads and rescue workers continued their somber search through the ash-coated rubble.
Investigators meantime cast a worldwide net for those behind the hijackers who slammed jetliners into the twin towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Virginia in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.
The first clues to the identity of those responsible pointed toward five suspects whose movements appear to have taken them to Boston, Canada and Florida, and suggested that the knife-wielding hijackers may have had Middle Eastern and Islamic connections.
Investigators said they believed that each of the commandeered planes had been hijacked by groups of three to six men armed with box cutters and plastic knives that would have been difficult for airport security officials to detect. There was no breakthrough in the case, however, and officials said the inquiry might take weeks or months.
There was no continuation of the terrorist assaults Wednesday, as many had feared, but there were further collapses at the Trade Center Plaza. A nation that had been aghast and mostly shut down on Tuesday tried to move back toward a semblance of life. Across the country, businesses, shopping malls, government offices and skyscrapers reopened. But except for a limited number of flights, commercial aviation remained at a standstill.
Federal aviation officials, who had hoped to reopen the skyways, said that most planes would remain grounded until new security measures could be put in place at the nation's airports. Only those flights that had been diverted on Tuesday -- about 2,000 planes in the air at the time of the attacks -- were allowed to continue to their destinations Wednesday.
But the vast majority of America's 35,000 to 40,000 daily flights remained on tarmacs, and there were reports that a growing number of travelers feared flying and were canceling reservations and taking ground transportation. Many highways and bus and train terminals were jammed.
The Federal Aviation Administration's new security measures at airports called for prohibiting knives of any size on planes, ending curbside check-ins and eliminating all cargo and mail from passenger jets. They also ordered greater scrutiny of planes between flights and unattended vehicles near terminals. The measures were expected to add to check-in and boarding times.
There were reports of price gouging on gasoline sales in Ohio, Oklahoma, Minnesota and Georgia, up to $5 a gallon in some places, but prices subsided as consumer groups and oil companies offered assurances that oil supplies would not be affected.
The nation's stock markets were not expected to reopen before Friday or perhaps Monday. The New York Stock Exchange, its shutdown already the longest since World War II, said it wanted to do nothing to interrupt the search and recovery operations under way a few blocks away.
With jittery financial markets around the world sagging in the wake of the attack, central banks moved Wednesday to restore calm and ease fears that the terrorist attack would lead to a global economic crisis or tip the fragile American economy into recession. The U.S. Federal Reserve injected $38.25 billion into the financial system by buying government bonds from investment houses. Typically it buys only a few billion dollars worth of bonds in a day.
The scenes of attack -- the Pentagon, with one of its five sides in ruins, and the trade center, whose twin towers and three other buildings had collapsed -- continued to smolder as firefighters and rescue teams hoping for miracles probed the debris in round-the-clock operations.
And New York City was far from normal, with financial markets, airports, schools and Broadway theaters closed, and hospitals and morgues braced for casualties in horrendous numbers. The United Nations was evacuated by a bomb threat. While commuter lines, subways and buses resumed near-normal schedules, and schools were to reopen today, Manhattan below 14th Street was a no-man's land, with transportation and most businesses halted. Police restricted access to streets south of Houston.
The toppled trade center resembled a nuclear-winter war zone.
The danger and drama of the search for victims was captured in the rescue of one woman shortly after noon from a pocket of rubble that had been a pedestrian walkway over the West Side Highway. Fire trucks lay buried in the rubble as well, Joe Lashendock, an iron worker and rescue team member, said.
''Firefighters came across a lady and a fireman,'' he said. ''The lady was alive. Firefighters went down in the hole. She requested water. They sent in a basket and a neck brace. We all made a chain. She was breathing. Her hand was moving. We said, 'We're going to get you out of here.' She just looked at us. It makes it all worthwhile for the one.''
Firefighters rest near a piece of the World Trade Center early Wednesday. On the day after hijackers commandeered commercial jetliners and crashed them into two of the most visible symbols of America's financial and military might, President Bush condemned the attacks while investigators began piecing together leads and rescue workers continued their somber search through the ash-coated rubble.
What at first seemed to be one firefighter turned out to be a group, all apparently dead. The rescuers were forced to leave the men buried, fearing a further collapse that would endanger more lives. And late Wednesday afternoon, a five-story pile of rubble -- a jagged spire of steel and concrete -- toppled in on itself. No one was hurt, but hundreds of rescue workers fled for cover.
As a stunned nation reeled with televised images of death and destruction, and an almost wartime fervor against a faceless enemy gripped many Americans, President Bush, who had placed American military forces on alert around the world, called the attack an ''act of war'' and vowed to hunt down and punish those responsible in a ''monumental struggle of good versus evil.''
On Capitol Hill, the House and Senate passed a joint resolution expressing unanimous support for the president and for government efforts to track down the perpetrators. It also spoke of a nation united in efforts to recover from the attack and to rebuild. But the new agenda in Washington was sure to include debate about the effectiveness of American intelligence and airport security in a nation that had been taken by surprise in a meticulously planned attack.
Around the world, America's allies and even many of its nominal foes voiced revulsion at the attack and condolences for families of the casualties. North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan and Iran -- all of which have been accused by the United States of abetting terrorism -- joined the condemnations.
The 19 nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, in a powerful message of solidarity, unanimously invoked its collective defense clause for the first time in the organization's 52-year history, pledging to regard the attack on America as an attack on all the treaty nations, which would support any retaliation if the attackers are identified.
In a telephone interview from Gaza on Wednesday, Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader, voiced compassion for the attack victims and angrily rejected accounts that some Palestinians had rejoiced over the attack. Asked about television pictures of Palestinian celebrations, he insisted that ''it was less than 10 children in East Jerusalem, and we punished them.''
Other groups linked to attacks on Israelis -- including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -- denied responsibility. But an Iraqi newspaper applauded the attack, calling it due punishment for America's ''crimes.''
No one took immediate responsibility for the attack, but speculation focused on Osama bin Laden, the Saudi exile living in Afghanistan who is blamed for the 1998 attacks on two U.S. embassies in Africa. Afghanistan's Taliban rulers voiced skepticism that bin Laden was involved and issued a plea to be spared from attack, pointing to Afghanistan's poverty and under-development.
Investigators said the initial clues pointed toward Boston, Canada and Florida. They said that five Arab men had been identified as suspects and that a rented car believed used by the suspects had been seized at Boston's Logan Airport, where the two hijacked jets that rammed the trade center towers had originated. The Boston Herald reported that the car contained flight training manuals.
In a pair of bags designated for American Airlines Flight 11, one of the hijacked jets, investigators found a copy of the Koran, a videotape on flying commercial jets and a fuel consumption calculator, The Boston Globe said. Federal investigators said that the suspects may have entered the United States from Canada. The Boston Herald quoted investigators as saying that two were brothers with passports from the United Arab Emirates and that one was a trained pilot.
Other investigators said that heavily armed teams of federal agents detained three men for questioning and searched a room at a Westin Hotel in Boston's Copley Plaza. The three, a law enforcement official said, were being held as material witnesses after using a credit card that was believed to have been used to buy some of the hijackers' tickets.
Federal agents were also looking into known bin Laden supporters in Florida. They served search warrants at four homes in Davie and an apartment in Coral Springs, near Fort Lauderdale, and searched businesses in Hollywood and a home in Sarasota County, on the Gulf Coast. It was unclear if anyone was arrested.
Charlie Voss, a former employee at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Fla., said that agents questioned him about two men who stayed with him while getting flight training last year. He said they told him a car found at Logan Airport had been registered to the two men, one he knew as Mohamed Atta and the other only as Marwan. He said the men took flight training on small planes at Venice Municipal Airport.
The number of people killed in the coordinated attacks by knife-wielding hijackers may not be known for days or weeks, but it was likely to be in the thousands. A total of 266 people died on four hijacked jets: three in crashes into the trade center towers and the Pentagon, and the fourth in a crash near Pittsburgh. Estimates of the dead at the Pentagon ranged from 100 to 800.
But most of the casualties were believed to be in the rubble of the trade center. Many of the 40,000 to 50,000 people who normally worked there had not yet arrived when the planes struck, and many managed to escape in the time between the crashes and the collapse of the towers.
In a Wednesday evening briefing, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said that five people had been found alive and extricated from the rubble. He also cited reports that cell phone calls had been received from victims caught in pockets of rubble, and said that no effort would be spared to find them.
The mayor said that 82 bodies had been recovered -- a fraction of those presumed dead -- and that 1,700 were known injured. Fire officials said that 350 firefighters were missing or dead, including whole companies of firefighters and each of the five elite rescue units that served the five boroughs, in the worst disaster in Fire Department history. Most were caught in the collapses after rushing in to rescue people.
Besides the lost firefighters, dozens of police officers and other emergency workers were missing. Giuliani said that Jeff Immelt, the chief executive officer of General Electric, had donated $10 million to a fund for the families of police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers killed in the collapse.
On the number of dead, Giuliani said: ''The best estimate we can make, relying on the Port Authority and just everybody else that has experience with this, is there will be a few thousand people left in each building.''
Asked if the World Trade Center would be rebuilt, the mayor said, ''There's no question we're going to rebuild. I can't say that we know the exact nature yet of how we're going to do that,'' but he added: ''The skyline will be made whole again.''
Gov. George E. Pataki said that search and rescue teams, firefighters and National Guard troops were being augmented by reinforcements from states and counties in region and from Puerto Rico. ''They're risking their lives to try to save their friends and their colleagues and the New Yorkers who are still trapped,'' he said.
Some companies that had offices in the trade center were trying to count their missing employees Wednesday. Marsh & McClennan, a money-management firm, said that about 700 employees who worked in one of the towers were still missing. Keefe Bruyette & Woods, a securities company that advises banks on mergers, said half of its 170 workers had not been accounted for. Cantor Fitzgerald, a major player in the government bond market, said 730 employees were missing from the 1,000-member trade center work force.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the trade center and had offices at the trade center, said that 200 members of its staff were missing, including 35 Port Authority police officers and commanders who were involved in the early rescue efforts. More than 150 Port Authority officers were part of the search and rescue operations.
The Port Authority, which operates many bridges and tunnels and the three major metropolitan airports, said the upper level of the George Washington Bridge and the Staten Island bridges were reopened in both directions, while the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels remained closed.
The airports remained in a virtual lockdown for most of the day, although they were ready Wednesday night to receive any of the diverted flights whose continuation had been authorized by federal authorities. Check-in counters were empty at the terminals.
''It's like a ghost town,'' Hugo Chavez, a ground crew member at La Guardia, said. ''All we need is the tumble weed blowing through.''
Public health experts and federal officials said that the large number of bodies buried in the trade center rubble posed no risk of an infectious disease epidemic in the city. But they noted that exposure to chemical or biological agents in the debris could pose a health risk to those exposed.
Lower Manhattan was a strange setting Wednesday. The site of the World Trade Center, 1,350-foot twin towers and two other buildings in the trade center complex, were gone, reduced to mountains of debris and skeletal steel that jutted crazily. Over it all hung a pall of brownish-gray haze that carried a coarse, sawdust-like powder, a combination of pulverized concrete, insulation, paper and ash; it settled like a blanket, inches thick, on everything. In the rubble, too, were body parts, tons of paper documents, clothing torn to rags.
In addition to the collapse of Towers 1 and 2, three other buildings in the trade center complex fell. Buildings 5 and 7 collapsed Tuesday night, along with one of two walkways over the West Side Highway. A second walkway fell late Wednesday.
The damage was spread over the neighborhood. A chunk of Tower 2 landed atop the Bankers Trust building and the nearby St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church on Liberty Street, demolishing the roofs. Other buildings bordering the trade center on Liberty Street to the south, Church Street to the east and West Street to the west sustained severe damage to facades.
One World Financial Center, the Merrill Lynch building, the East River Savings Bank and the Millennium Hotel all have shattered windows, but appear to be structurally sound and are not cloaked in rubble. Two historic churches -- St. Paul's Chapel and Trinity Church -- sustained no visible damage. Six World Trade Center, at the northeast corner, still stands. And a sculpture garden on the east edge of the complex is coated with debris, but on six flagpoles the banners of New York State and City continued to flutter.
By Karen Gullo THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 13, 2001
Massive probe: Spots in Florida, East searched
WASHINGTON — Federal authorities have identified more than a dozen hijackers of Middle Eastern descent in Tuesday's bombings and gathered evidence linking them to Osama bin Laden and other terrorist networks, law enforcement officials said.
The massive investigation stretched from the Canadian border, where officials suspect some of the hijackers entered the country, to Florida, where some of the participants are believed to have learned how to fly commercial jetliners before the attacks. Locations in Massachusetts and Florida were searched for evidence.
The names of two men being sought by authorities emerged in Florida. There, the FBI interviewed a family that gave them temporary shelter a year ago.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told THE ASSOCIATED PRESS that multiple cells of terrorist groups participated and that hijackers had possible ties to countries that included Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
The identities of more than a dozen of the men who hijacked four planes with knives and threats of bombs has been ascertained, the officials said. Several hijackers had pilot's licenses.
Trained in U.S.
At least one hijacker on each of the four planes was trained at a U.S. flight school, said Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker. The flight schools were in Florida and at least one other state. The hijackers used both cash and credit cards to purchase their plane tickets and hotel rooms.
Authorities detained at least a half dozen people in Massachusetts and Florida on unrelated local warrants and immigration charges and were questioning them about their possible ties to the hijackers. No charges related to the attacks had been filed.
Search warrants were executed in Florida, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Sealed warrants went out in several other states, officials said.
"We're attempting to recreate the travels of each of the hijackers on the planes — either the hijackers themselves or their associates," FBI Director Robert Mueller said.
For some of the suspected accomplices, "we have information as to involvement with individual terrorist groups," Mueller added. He declined to say which groups or whether they were connected to bin Laden.
Officials said authorities were gathering evidence that the terrorist cells may have had prior involvement in earlier plots against the United States, and may have been involved with bin Laden. That includes the USS Cole bombing in Yemen and the foiled attack on U.S. soil during the millennium celebrations.
"This could have been the result of several terrorist kingpins working together. We're investigating that possibility," one law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity told THE ASSOCIATED PRESS.
Sen. Charles Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said the briefing he received Wednesday from law enforcement left him with the same impression.
"Most of it today points to bin Laden but the speculation at the end of the road is that he and his network were very much involved with Hezbollah, Fatah and other" terrorist organizations, Grassley said.
The senator said authorities told him all the hijackers were of Middle Eastern descent and that they had "a tremendous amount of ground support for each hijacker."
Seeking two cars
A Venice, Fla., man said FBI agents told him that two men who stayed in his home while training at a local flight school were involved in the attacks. Charlie Voss, a former employee at Huffman Aviation in Venice said the FBI told him one of the men was named Mohamed Atta. A student at Huffman Aviation identified the second man as Marwan Alshehhi.
The FBI in Miami issued a national bulletin for law enforcement agencies to look out for two cars. Records with the Florida Division of Motor Vehicles show that one of the vehicles the FBI was pursuing — a 1989 red Pontiac — was registered to Atta, who previously had a driver's license in Egypt.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said numerous promising leads were being followed up. "The Department of Justice has undertaken perhaps the most massive and intensive investigation ever conducted in this country," he said.
Ashcroft said authorities were conducting interviews and reviewing airline manifests, rental car records and pay phone records. He said between three and six hijackers, armed with knives and box cutters, seized control of the four commercial jets. Two hit New York's World Trade Center, a third smashed into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania.
Some 4,000 special agents and 3,000 support personnel are assisting in the investigation, and 400 FBI laboratory specialists are at the crime scenes in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
Evidence has been collected at the Pentagon and Pennsylvania site, but investigators have not yet been able to start work at the World Trade Center, where the search for survivors continued.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were investigating whether one group of hijackers crossed the Canadian border at a checkpoint and made their way to Boston, where an American Airlines flight was hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center.