FBI Sifts Through Hundreds of Leads in Attacks

Photos Reuters Photo Slideshows AP Photo Coordinated Terrorist Attack Audio/Video FBI Investigating Several Leads (ABCNEWS.com)

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI (news - web sites) sifted through hundreds of leads and conducted searches Wednesday in the deadly terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon (news - web sites) as U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) and FBI Director Robert Mueller prepared to brief Congress and hold a news conference.

Justice Department (news - web sites) spokeswoman Susan Dryden said Ashcroft and Mueller would hold the news conference at FBI headquarters in Washington at 3 p.m. EDT, after they brief several hundred members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

They are expected to discuss the FBI's criminal investigation into how knife-wielding hijackers crashed commercial jets into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington Tuesday. Thousands were feared dead in the worst attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor.

``There are a number of law enforcement actions taken across the country. There have been search warrants. It has happened. There may be people taken into custody or interviewed,'' one federal law enforcement official said.

The official, who declined to give any details, said people would be taken into custody as a ``material witness,'' meaning they might have helpful information for the investigation.

Justice Department spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said more than 700 leads already have come on the FBI's Web site -- www.ifccfbi.gov -- set up for anyone to report any information about the attacks.

The hijackers commandeered four planes and flew two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, toppling the two highest structures in New York; a third seriously damaged the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

Tucker said investigators believed there were three to five hijackers on each plane, and that there were skilled pilots among the hijackers.

On at least two of the planes, the hijackers were armed with knives and box cutters, she said, adding most of the information stemmed from what passengers on the doomed flights disclosed in conversations from their cell phones before the crashes.

Tucker said she was unaware of any arrests in the investigation, but declined to comment on any searches.

In Florida, search warrants were served on four homes in Davie and an apartment in Coral Springs, two towns west of Fort Lauderdale, and agents searched businesses in Hollywood and a home in Sarasota County on the state's west coast, according to police and television reports.

Two Boston newspapers reported authorities in Massachusetts had identified five Arab men as suspects and had seized a rental car containing Arabic-language flight training manuals at the city's Logan International Airport, where two of the hijacked planes originated.

U.S. officials have said those who carried out the attacks may have had links to Saudi exile Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) or his organization.

Tucker declined to say where bin Laden ranked as a possible suspect, but added, ``Any lead they get they are following.''

In between the briefing on Capitol Hill and the news conference at FBI headquarters, Ashcroft will go to the White House for a National Security Council meeting, she said.

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