The United States is "at war," US President George W. Bush said Saturday, calling Saudi-born extremist Osama bin Laden a "prime suspect" in the attacks this week on Washington and New York, where memorial services began for many lost after the crashes of four hijacked jets.
"We're at war. There has been an act of war declared upon America by terrorists, and we will respond accordingly," Bush told reporters in a break from a meeting with his national security team at the presidential retreat of Camp David in the Maryland mountains.
After approving Friday a mobilization of the nation's 35,500 military reserves -- for the first time since the 1991 Gulf War -- Bush advised uniformed personnel to be at the ready for homeland defense and to provide support for port operations, medical needs, engineering and general civil support.
"My message is for everybody who wears the uniform: Get ready. The United States will do what it takes to win this war. And I ask patience of the American people," Bush said.
The president declined even barest mention of the tactics under consideration by his administration to retaliate against the perpetrators and engineers of the hijacking of the airplanes which authorities believe have killed more than 5,000 people.
In the strongest declaration so far issued from the administration, Bush said of the exiled bin Laden, whose al-Qaeda ("the Base") network many US officials suspect in the attacks: "There is no question he is what we would call a prime suspect."
"And if he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken," Bush warned.
Bin Laden, harbored by the militant Taliban regime that governs Afghanistan, is believed hiding within the borders of the impoverished south Asian nation.
Its neighbor, Pakistan, said Saturday it would give the international community its "full support" in efforts to combat terrorism but signalled it would require any military action to be sanctioned by the United Nations.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said President Pervez Musharraf's cabinet and National Security Council "reached consensus on the policy of full support to the world community in combatting international terrorism," examining a US request for assistance in taking action against bin Laden.
"Consistent with Pakistan's policy of support for the decisions of the security council, the government will discharge responsibilities under international law," Sattar said.
The United States hailed what it deemed Pakistani "support" for its operation to strike against bin Laden, one of the FBI's ten most wanted who is believed responsible for the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in Africa that killed 224 people and the attack last October on the USS Cole in Yemen that left 17 US military personnel dead.
"I especially want to thank the president and the people of Pakistan for the support that they have offered and their willingness to assist us in whatever might be required in that part of the world, as we determine who these perpetrators are," Secretary of State Colin Powell said from Camp David.
But the Taliban, now used to being able to count on backing from Islamabad, threatened Pakistan with a "massive attack" if it helped the United States launch retalitory military strikes on Afghanistan.
The US Justice Department on Friday released the names of 19 men believed to have hijacked the four planes, two of which rammed the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center, one that devastated the west end of the Pentagon outside Washington and a fourth which crashed in western Pennsylvania.
Most of the suspects, aged 21 to 33 and all presumed dead, had addresses in the United States and a number of them were qualified pilots, according to the FBI. Another list of 52 names of alleged associates in the United States has been circulated to airlines.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said a third list, with 100 names, had been issued to law enforcement agencies throughout the United States, including 18,000 police departments.
A number of those on the lists are known to have ties to bin Laden, law enforcement sources said, with the Islamic Jihad and fundamentalists in Algeria loosely affiliated with al-Qaeda.
Federal agents detained an unnamed man as a "material witness" in New York, the first to be detained in the nationwide probe. While not necessarily a suspect, a material witness is believed to know information authorities may find relevant to a criminal investigation, and often is considered a flight risk.
Elsewhere, European authorities have stepped up their hunts for suspects across the continent, with Swiss investigators combing evidence some suspects passed through Switzerland and Belgian prosecutors making an arrest of a man described as a Muslim of North African origin belonging to a "radical Islamic movement."
Also, German authorities have identified two of the presumed hijackers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, as former residents of Hamburg. Atta and Al-Shehhi were on United Airlines flight 175 -- the two planes that crashed in New York.
"They will try to hide. They will try to avoid the United States and our allies, but we're not going to let them. They run to the hills, they find holes to get in, and we will do whatever it takes to smoke them out and get them running, and we will get them," Ashcroft said Saturday, also from Camp David.
Meanwhile, New York began to bury the victims of the horrific attack on the landmark symbol of US financial might, racing so that Wall Street could reopen Monday, after being closed since Tuesday morning, its longest closure ever.
Father Mychal Judge, chaplain of the city's fire department, who died along with more than 300 of his men, was buried Saturday morning at Saint Francis church in midtown Manhattan.
Other senior firemen including the first deputy commissioner, William Feehan, and the department chief, Peter Ganci, were to be laid to rest in other parts of the metropolis.
New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said the toll of dead and missing now stands at 5,124. Ninety-two of the 152 bodies recovered from the rubble have been identified, with 4,972 people, including 23 policemen, still buried under the tonnes of debris.
Near Washington, attorney and television commentator Barbara Olsen -- the wife of the US Solicitor General Theodore Olsen -- was also laid to rest. She was killed in the jet that hit the Pentagon.
"Great tragedy has come to us, and we are meeting it with the best that is in our country, with courage and concern for others because this is America. This is who we are," Bush said in his weekly radio address.
"This is what our enemies hate and have attacked. And this is why we will prevail” -- WASHINGTON (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
