Justice Department setting up task forces
The top law enforcement official in the United States announced Tuesday afternoon that every U.S. attorney's office will establish an anti-terrorism task force to coordinate with the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and other federal and local law enforcement groups.
"These task forces will be a part of a national network that will coordinate the dissemination of information and the development of a strategy to disrupt, dismantle and punish terrorist organizations throughout the country," said U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
He also said U.S. investigators have been unable to confirm whether additional planes -- besides the four jetliners hijacked last week -- may have been targeted in planned terrorist attacks, but he said investigators had not ruled out that possibility.
Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner James Ziglar signed regulations expanding the time that illegal immigrants can be detained before being charged from 24 hours to 48 hours or longer in cases of emergency, Ashcroft said.
In addition, Ashcroft said there is no evidence of any connection between a new computer worm called "Nimda" and the terrorists.
President Bush urged Americans to continue donating time and money to the relief efforts that have followed the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York and a portion of the Pentagon in Washington.
More than 5,000 people are feared dead in the September 11 attacks. A fourth plane crashed in Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania, killing everyone aboard.
A week after terrorists turned four jets into fuel-laden missiles aimed at the symbols of American power, U.S. officials prepared a response to the attacks and awaited a decision from Afghanistan's leading clerics on the fate of Osama bin Laden, the Saudi millionaire whom Bush has named the "prime suspect" in the September 11 attacks.
U.S. stock markets Tuesday were trading in a narrow range, fighting to recover from Monday's sell-off. The 684-point drop was a record point decline for the Dow industrials but was not a record when measured in percentage terms.
Latest developments
• Mohamed Atta -- one of the suspected hijackers on board the first plane to slam into the World Trade Center last week -- met with an Iraqi intelligence official somewhere in Europe this year, U.S. officials said Tuesday. The officials cautioned that this contact does not mean that Iraq had a role in last week's terrorist attacks, but they are exploring what it may mean.
• CNN has learned United Airlines -- which lost two planes in last week's terrorist attacks -- plans to layoff 20,000 employees.
• Two weeks before the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, FBI agents were at a flight school in Oklahoma asking questions about a man now suspected of having a link to those attacks, sources said.
• Philippine authorities warned the FBI six years ago of a terrorist plot to hijack commercial planes and slam them into the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters and other buildings, Philippine investigators told CNN
• The USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier battle group will deploy Wednesday from Norfolk, Virginia, headed for the Mediterranean Sea "and perhaps points east" of there, officials told CNN Tuesday.
• New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani says 218 people are confirmed dead in the World Trade Center attacks; 152 of those have been identified. Emergency workers accounted for 74 of the dead. "The chances of recovering any live human beings are very, very small now, given the amount of time and the condition of the site," Giuliani said.
• Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta met with airline executives Tuesday morning and told them his top priorities are improving safety and making sure the airlines are on strong financial footing.
• Determining the identity of victims of the World Trade Center tragedy will require meticulous sorting, special attention to comparative location of objects and the skills of anthropology and dental experts.
• White House staffers, including the president, observed a moment of silence at 8:45 a.m., a week to the minute from the first plane strike at the World Trade Center towers.
• U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans told CNN that nations that do not cooperate with the U.S. military response to last week's attack could face "measures ... sanctions, or other kind of barriers to our markets."
• U.S. troops will soon provide security around the Pentagon, defense officials tell CNN. The troops will augment the Pentagon's civilian police force and military police. No timetable was provided for the arrival of uniformed troops.
• Senior Pakistani officials, who delivered a warning to Afghanistan's ruling Taliban on Monday that they should turn over bin Laden or face American wrath, met with other leaders from the Taliban on Tuesday. Taliban leaders told CNN that, while such messages were nothing new to them, they would give them due consideration in the meeting of Islamic leaders, expected to last two or three days once it begins.
• Among the key figures in any decison will be the supreme leader of the Taliban, Mullah Mohammed Omar, who refuses to be photographed or filmed and rarely travels far from Kandahar.
• U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said he is concerned there may be more terrorist assaults planned against the United States.
• British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal and other officials are headed to Washington this week. Chirac and Bush will meet Tuesday night.
• The State Department has ordered all of its nonemergency personnel and their families to leave Pakistan and strongly urged all Americans who remain behind to be wary and keep a low profile.
