FBI appeals for help on hijackers

The US is busy training air marshals to boost security

The FBI has appealed for more information on the 19 suspected suicide hijackers who carried out the 11 September attacks on the United States.

It says some of them had links with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

The FBI has released photos of hijack suspects

Photographs of the suspects have now been published on the FBI's website, but the US investigators admit that some of the identities remain a mystery and they are still trying to confirm their real names.

Saudi-born dissident Bin Laden - a guest of Afghanistan's ruling Taleban since 1996 - is suspected of masterminding the 11 September suicide attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon on Washington.

More than 300 people have now been detained in the US, but so far no charges have been laid against anyone in connection with the four hijackings.

Some false identities

The Justice Department believes at least eight of the 19 suspects may have been Saudi nationals.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said the authorities were trying to determine "whether, when these individuals came to the United States, these were their real names or they changed their names for use with false identification in the United States".

We're not leaping into this, we're moving into it in a measured way

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

Investigators have found a handwritten document left behind by one of the suspects - Mohamed Atta - which included Islamic prayers and instructions for a last night of life, the Washington Post reports.

The five-page document, written in Arabic, contained practical reminders to bring "knives, your will, IDs, your passport" and to "make sure nobody is following you". It was found in a piece of luggage that did not make it onto Atta's fatal flight, the paper said.

The document said that "only those, the believers who know the life after death and the reward after death, would be the ones who will be seeking death".

As thousands of Afghans fled their homes in fear of attacks by the United States, the US reiterated that it was in no hurry to go to war.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said: "We're not leaping into this, we're moving into it in a measured way,"

Global measures

Other officials said the US was focusing on investigating the attacks, on diplomacy and financial measures.

The Taleban: Message delivered to Bin Laden by hand

Earlier this week, Mr Bush announced the freezing of assets of 27 individuals and organisations - including al-Qaeda - and urged world financial institutions to follow suit.

And on Thursday the US asked the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution obliging all member states to report within 60 days on measures taken to curb terrorist movements.

Six Algerians arrested in Spain on suspicion of links with Bin Laden will appear in court on Friday to face questioning in connection with an alleged terrorist plot against United States interests in Europe.

During the police operation, Spanish authorities seized videos belonging to the suspects which contained images of attacks in Algeria and Chechnya and training camps in Afghanistan.