U.S. Says It Has Identified HijackersTop U.S. officials said Wednesday they know the identities of many of the hijackers on each of the four flights that crashed Tuesday -- two toppling the World Trade Center and a third heavily damaging the Pentagon in the worst terrorist attacks in U.S history."We have, in the last 24 hours, taken the (passenger) manifests and used them in an evidentiary base," said FBI Director Robert Mueller. "And have successfully, I believe, identified many of the hijackers on each of the four flights that went down." The fourth flight crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, people were taken into custody by U.S. agents as the investigation into Tuesday's deadly air crashes intensified on several fronts. The individuals have not been arrested and they have not been described as suspects. Federal agents were also investigating whether separate cells of terrorists were involved in Tuesday's attacks. The massive investigation, involving hundreds of agents and numerous law enforcement agencies, played out on several fronts across the United States as the hunt for the culprits intensified. At a Wednesday afternoon news conference, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Mueller acknowledged that people had been detained, but said no arrests had been made. Mueller said investigators are using passenger manifests of the four crashed airliners to identify who was involved in the disasters. |
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