David Le Page, Grahamstown | Tuesday
THE twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York have collapsed — most likely with thousands of people still trapped within them. The collapse followed the flying of two hijacked passenger aircraft through highly restricted airspace into the towers.
THE attacks on the New York World Trade Center and the United States Department of Defence headquarters at the Pentagon in Washington have frozen airline traffic across and into the US.
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that four commercial flights, two United Airlines planes and two American Airlines planes, were missing, believed to be involved in the attacks on New York and Washington.
One was flight UA 93, a Boeing 757 aircraft, which departed from Newark, New Jersey, at 8:01 am (1201 GMT) bound for San Francisco, with 38 passengers, two pilots, five flight attendants aboard, it said in a statement.
The other was UA 175, a Boeing 767 aircraft, which left from Boston at 7:58 a.m. (1158 GMT) local time, bound for Los Angeles, with 56 passengers, two pilots and seven flight attendants, it said.
The attacks could have caused the deaths of as many as 20_000 people.
Taliban militia denies that Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden played any role
The Canadian government has ordered all flights to and from Canadian airports except “those flights required for humanitarian purposes” to be canceled Tuesday in the wake of the US terrorist attacks.
The announcement was made by Transport Minister David Collenette.
“Until further notice,” he said, “all air movements from Canadian airports are grounded, except for those flights required for urgent humanitarian purposes, and diversions by the FAA (US Federal Aviation Administration) of international aircraft previously destined for the United States.”
Security forces worldwide are on alert, and Israeli embassies around the world have been evacuted.
So far, the identity of the apparent hijackers/attackers is not confirmed. A retired US general interviewed on CNN said he suspected Osama bin Laden — the international terrorist blamed for the bombing of two US embassies in Africa in 1998, But Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia on Tuesday denied that Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden had played any role in the attacks.
The Taliban militia’s ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef condemned the attacks and said he hoped the perpetrators would be quickly brought to justice.
“Osama is only a person he does not have the facilities to carry out such activities,” he told a news conference.
“We want to tell the American people that Afghanistan feels their pain. We hope that the terrorists are caught and brought to justice.”
The radical Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Tuesday denied any link to a spate of attacks in the United States, but called on Washington to change its foreign policies.
“The Hamas strategy consists of fighting against the Zionist occupier in Palestine but not outside of Palestine. We are not looking to extend the conflict outside of Palestine, whether to the United States or elsewhere,” Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh said.
According to the US Federal Aviation Administration, which has grounded all US aircraft in the wake of the attacks, only 50 planes remain airborne in US airspace — normally over 4_000 would be in flight at any one time.
President Thabo Mbeki made a statement on Tuesday evening, saying that he had learnt with “shock and dismay of the today’s terror attacks in cities of United States of America.”
Markets close in Latin America, FTSE freefalls, gold up
He condemned the attacks wholeheartedly and called on the “international community to unite against global terrorism.”
A bomb scare in Cape Town saw Newspaper House evacuated for a few hours, disrupting production of the Cape Times.
The economic effects of the attacks have already begun to ricochet through the financial world — with the oil price rising three dollars to around $30 a barrel, and the gold rising $20 an ounce.
The New York Stock Exchange has not opened at all — the attack having taken place first thing in the morning. The FTSE in London went into freefall on the news and at close, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange had dropped over 200 points.
Stock exchanges across Latin America shut down Tuesday while currencies fell sharply in the wake of the presumed terrorist attacks in the United States.
Stock trading was suspended in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. – own reporter, Sapa
Guardian special report on events in New York