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18 hijackers were involved: US attorney general

In all, 18 hijackers commandeered the four aircraft, three of which rammed into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon on September 11, United States Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Thursday.

He said five hijackers were present in each of the two planes and four each in the other two, one of which crashed in Pennsylvania.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ashcroft said, was working on "thousands and thousands of leads" in the investigation of Tuesday's terror attacks.

While there have been no arrests, he said, authorities have interviewed many people in connection with the hijacking of the four airliners and the attacks in New York and Washington.

Ashcroft and others described as "extraordinary" the investigation stretching from the Canadian border, where officials suspect some of the hijackers entered the US, to Florida, where some of the participants are believed to have learned how to fly commercial jetliners.

The Attack on America: The Complete Coverage

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