United Nations condemns world’s worst terrorist attack

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday expressed his “profound condolences” to the families of those killed and injured in the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, USA, that day, as well as to the people and government of the United States. “There can be no doubt that these attacks are deliberate acts of terrorism, carefully planned and coordinated - and, as such, I condemn them utterly,” he said. The World Trade Center in New York, USA, was destroyed and the Pentagon defence installation in Washington seriously damaged when commercial airliners hijacked by unknown terrorists slammed into them on Tuesday, 11 September. Thousands are feared to have died inside the World Trade Center’s 110-storey twin towers and two other buildings destroyed in the complex, and about 260 more are presumed to have perished on board the planes. About 265 of the firefighters sent to the World Trade Center after the first explosion there on Tuesday morning were now presumed dead, and New York police had indicated that 85 of their officers were missing, the BBC reported on Wednesday. Estimates of the number of people killed in the Pentagon building ranged from 100 to 800. A fourth hijacked plane, which crashed in a rural area of Pennsylvania with the death of 45 passengers on board, was believed to have been targeting the presidential White House, the US Congress and Senate buildings on Capitol Hill, or the Camp David weekend presidential retreat in Maryland, American media reported. Establishing the final death toll for the four incidents could take weeks, according to rescue workers. US President Bush vowed on Tuesday to find and punish those responsible for the country’s worst ever terrorist attack, and warned that his administration would make “no distinction between the terrorists who committed the attacks and those who harbour them” when it considered any retaliatory actions it might take against those it held responsible. Though the identity of those behind the attacks and what they hoped to achieve was still unknown, terrorism must be fought resolutely wherever it appeared, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated on Tuesday. “What we do know is that no just cause can be advanced by terror,” he said, adding that, in such moments, cool and reasoned judgement was more essential than ever. A succession of world leaders have expressed their shock and horror, though there have been celebrations in some quarters by groups who have linked the attack to US policy in the Middle East. The US authorities have, as yet, received no credible claim of responsibility, the US media reported on Wednesday. Officials have, however, voiced suspicions that the Saudi dissident and Islamic militant Usama bin Ladin may have been responsible. American intelligence services had intercepted communications between bin Laden supporters discussing the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, according to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In a statement carried in a Pakistani newspaper, bin Ladin denied involvement in the New York and Washington attacks but said he fully supported them. US suspicion has rapidly fallen on bin Ladin, who is believed by Washington to have been responsible for the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, in which hundreds of people died, and for last October’s attack on the USS Cole warship in Yemen. He is currently the guest of the ruling Taliban Islamic Movement in Afghanistan, which has refused to hand him over to the US for his alleged involvement in those earlier attacks. Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Motawakkil on Tuesday denied that his movement or bin Ladin’s had anything to do with the New York and Washington attacks. UN Security Council members on Tuesday joined world leaders in expressing their shock, and condemned the attacks in the strongest terms. “This is a tragedy for and a challenge to all humanity. There can be no excuse or justification for these acts and any terrorist act,” they said. The Council called on UN member states to work to bring to justice “the perpetrators, organisers and sponsors” of the outrages, and asked for all states to redouble their efforts to prevent and suppress terrorist acts by increased cooperation and full implementation of relevant international anti-terrorist conventions and Security Council resolutions. Members of the Security Council also expressed their readiness to take further urgent steps in accordance with their responsibilities under the charter of the United Nations.