US declares war - and begins hunt for killers

A stunned and grieving America was at war tonight - with the hunt for those responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington beginning in earnest.

Police in America were searching for two men they believe were involved in the twin terror attacks launched yesterday.

One, Mohamed Atta, and the other, known only as Marwan, have been named by the FBI.

Investigations by the FBI suggest five Arab men, one a trained pilot, were involved in the attacks after an Arabic flight training manual and a copy of the Koran were discovered in a rented car at Boston’s Logan Airport.

With the finger of suspicion increasingly pointing to terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, a heavily-armed raid of a Boston hotel was staged by the FBI but no one was detained.

Meanwhile in Florida an unknown number of people were taken into custody.

Elsewhere three men were detained for questioning by state police, CNN reported, after an inter-city train from Boston was stopped and searched in Providence, Rhode Island.

Tonight it emerged that the American Government believed there was a ‘‘credible threat’’ that the White House and Air Force One, the presidential jet, were targets for the terrorists.

A White House spokesman said: ‘‘The plane that hit the Pentagon may have been headed for the White House.’’

The spokesman said President George Bush landed in Louisiana and then went to Nebraska because his security in the air or in Washington could not be guaranteed.

The terrorists may have had plans to ram the Boeing 747 with one of their hijacked airliners, an extraordinary suicide attack, or fly it into the White House.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who led allied troops in the Gulf conflict, described the attacks today as ‘‘a war not just against the United States’’ but ‘‘a war against civilisation’’.

His comments were later backed up by Washington’s Nato allies who declared that the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington could be considered an attack on the whole alliance if it turns out they were directed from abroad.

The Secretary of State spoke as rescuers fought a battle of their own in the rubble of lower Manhattan to save the lives of those still buried alive after the destruction of the 110-storey twin towers of the World Trade Centre.

After speaking to foreign ministers and prime ministers worldwide, including Britain’s Jack Straw, General Powell said: ‘‘We are building a strong coalition to go after these perpetrators but more broadly to go after terrorism wherever it is found in the world.’’

America would go after terrorism ‘‘root and branch’’ and attack both it and its ‘‘sources’’, he added.

General Powell had earlier said of the American people: ‘‘We are at war and they want a comprehensive response. They want us to act as if we are at war and we’re going to do that - diplomatically and militarily.’’

His comments were echoed by President George Bush who vowed to ‘‘bring to justice’’ the masterminds of the attacks.

And he warned that America would make ‘‘no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harboured them’’.

The day after the attacks, the US was gripped by mounting anger and disbelief at the scale of atrocity wrought upon its shores.

Millions around the world watched endless re-runs of new video footage showing the final seconds of the two airliners which plunged into the trade centre’s towers.

In the UK, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesman said ‘‘hundreds’’ of Britons were now expected to have died.

Mr Blair said he was recalling Parliament for an emergency session on Friday to discuss the crisis.

Across the globe there were fears of further attacks, of the damage that could be done to the world economy, and of the many long-term implications of a new and terrifying form of terrorism for which the US was defenceless.

But for thousands of families there was the terrible dread for loved ones who went to work or boarded planes yesterday and have not been heard of since.

Irishman Ronnie Clifford counted himself lucky when he escaped from the World Trade Centre, only to discover that his sister Ruth Clifford McCourt, 45, and her four-year-old daughter Juliana were on board the second jet to strike the towers.

Chilling accounts emerged of passengers on the hijacked jets making final calls to their loved ones just second before they died - and evidence that some facing death went down fighting.

Moments before one of the planes went down, businessman Thomas Burnett of San Ramon, California, phoned his wife, telling her he feared the flight was doomed but he and two other passengers planned to do something about it.

One woman told her husband that the hijackers were armed with knives and there were reports of frantic struggles with stewardesses being stabbed.

The hijackers overpowered flight crews and seized control of the four jets in what was clearly a meticulously planned operation.

Rescue workers fought all night to reach people trapped in the wreckage amid reports that trapped survivors were using mobile phones to plead for help.

One police officer trapped in a void in the courtyard between the two giant towers was found waist deep in rubble, but was pulled to safety.

Establishing the death toll could take weeks. The four airliners alone had 266 people aboard and there were no survivors. Officials put the number of dead and wounded at the Pentagon at about 100 or more.

‘‘The number of casualties will be more than most of us can bear,’’ said Rudolph Giuliani, Mayor of New York.