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FBI: Early Probe Results Show 18 Hijackers Took Part
September 13, 2001 Posted: 4:14 PM EDT (2014 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN)
With U.S. authorities saying they believe they have identified most of the hijackers responsible for Tuesday's terrorist attacks, investigators cast an international net for accomplices, believed to be "a significant number."

FBI Director Robert Mueller said a preliminary investigation indicated 18 hijackers were on the four planes -- five on each of the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, and four each on the planes that crashed into the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.

The widening investigation stretched from the Canadian border to Florida, from Pennsylvania into Europe, as U.S. investigators enlisted the help of the international law enforcement community.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said a team of 4,000 special agents at the FBI, joined by 3,000 support personnel, are working on the largest investigation in U.S. history.

Thousands perished when two hijacked commercial jets slammed into the World Trade Center's twin towers Tuesday morning, causing the 110-story towers to collapse in a terrifying cascade of cement, metal, glass and human bodies. A third jet slammed into the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

Currently
No arrests have been made in connection with the deadly hijackings and no suspects have been identified by law enforcement authorities. An unspecified number of people have been detained for violations related to their immigration status.

About 40 of the people involved in the attacks have been accounted for, including those killed in the suicide attacks, but 10 remain at large, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday night on its Web site, citing an unidentified source with knowledge of the investigation.

Some of those involved in the plot left suicide notes, but they are not believed to have been the hijackers, a government source told The Associated Press. It was unclear whether those who left the notes actually killed themselves.

© 2001 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.
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