In the most devastating terrorist onslaught ever waged against the United States, knife-wielding hijackers crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center, toppling its twin 110-story towers. The deadly calamity was witnessed on televisions across the world as another plane slammed into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed outside Pittsburgh.
``Today, our nation saw evil,'' President George W Bush said in an address to the nation Tuesday night. He said thousands of lives were ``suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror.''Said Adm Robert J Natter, commander of the US Atlantic Fleet: ``We have been attacked like we haven't since Pearl Harbor.''
Establishing the death toll could take weeks. The four airliners alone had 266 people aboard and there were no known survivors. At the Pentagon, about 100 people were believed dead.
In addition, a firefighters union official said he feared an estimated 200 firefighters had died in rescue efforts at the trade center _ where 50,000 people worked _ and dozens of police officers were believed missing.
``The number of casualties will be more than most of us can bear,'' a visibly distraught Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said.
No one took responsibility for the attacks that rocked the seats of finance and government. But federal authorities identified Osama bin Laden, who has been given asylum by Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, as the prime suspect.
Aided by an intercept of communications between his supporters and harrowing cell phone calls from at least one flight attendant and two passengers aboard the jetliners before they crashed, American officials began assembling a case linking bin Laden to the devastation.
U.S. intelligence intercepted communications between bin Laden supporters discussing the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The people aboard planes who managed to make cell phone calls each described similar circumstances: They indicated the hijackers were armed with knives, in some cases stabbing flight attendants. The hijackers then took control of the planes.
At the World Trade Center, the dead and the doomed plummeted from the skyscrapers, among them a man and woman holding hands.
Shortly after 7 p.m. (2300 GMT), crews began heading into ground zero of the attack to search for survivors and recover bodies. All that remained of the twin towers by then was a pile of rubble and twisted steel that stood barely two stories high, leaving a huge gap in the New York City skyline.
``Freedom itself was attacked this morning and I assure you freedom will be defended,'' said Bush, who was in Florida at the time of the catastrophe. As a security measure, he was shuttled to a Strategic Air Command bunker in Nebraska before leaving for Washington.
``Make no mistake,'' he said. ``The United States will hunt down and pursue those responsible for these cowardly actions.''
More than nine hours after the attacks began, explosions could be heard north of the Afghan capital of Kabul, but American officials said the United States was not responsible.
``It isn't us. I don't know who's doing it,'' Pentagon spokesman Craig Quigley said.
Officials across the world condemned the attacks but in the West Bank city of Nablus, thousands of Palestinians celebrated, chanting ``God is Great'' and handing out candy. The United States has become increasingly unpopular in the Mideast in the past year of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, with Washington widely seen as siding with Israel against the Arab world.
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