rescues hindered by unstable buildings

US is preparing for war top officials say

Screen Actors Guild said it is donating $40K for assistance for families killed in terrorist attacks

Congress and Senate have come to an agreement for 20 billion dollars for NYC cleanup, and an additional 20 billion dollars for anti-terrorist action.

Bush is still considering calling 50,000 military reserves into service.

Fighter jets are patrolling the D.C to NYC corridor.

Three men, all nationals from Oman, were taken in for questioning in the city last week after they were found video-taping the sprawling U.S. Embassy, which occupies a large area fronting Manila Bay, police intelligence director Robert Delfin told Reuters.

There was no evidence to hold them further, and the three left for Thailand on Sunday, Delfin said. But a later routine search of their room at the Bay View Hotel, which is opposite the embassy, indicated residue of bomb-making material, he said.

By that time the three had left for Bangkok.

"The initial feeling is they may have planned to attack the embassy before September 11 or on September 11," presidential palace spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao told Reuters.

That was the day hijacked planes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. U.S. officials have said the hijackers were probably men of Middle East origin and that Saudi-born exile Osama bin Laden was a key suspect in the conspiracy.

Tiglao said the name of one of the three men questioned in Manila also appeared on the manifest of one of the American Airlines planes hijacked in the United States, but it could be a common Arab name. Further investigations were under way, he added.

"They were suspicious-looking," Delfin, the Philippine police officer, said of the three Omani men. "They took pictures of the embassy and were accosted by police...no arrests, but they left the country two days later.

The search of their hotel room "was positive for the chemicals that could be used in a bomb...residue of bomb-making materials," he added.

JOINT U.S.-PHILIPPINE OPERATIONS

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo told reporters in Tokyo earlier on Friday that joint operations between the Philippine police and U.S. authorities were being held at the Bay View Hotel.

Reuters cameramen were prevented from filming the area around the hotel and the U.S. Embassy and security in the area was heightened.

But hotel guests were not disturbed and the embassy was open for business as usual.

Embassy officials refused to comment on the events.

National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said the operation at the Bay View was aimed only at securing the area and preventing any threat to the U.S. embassy.

"It's just for security," he told Reuters. "It (the building) is fronting the embassy. You could have snipers there."

Asked if there was now any specific threat to the embassy in Manila, Golez said there was not, but added: "We presume there is a threat worldwide."

Japanese media quoted Arroyo as saying on Thursday that there might be a connection between those who planned and carried out the acts of terror against the United States and fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in the Philippines.

"It is better to wait for the investigation, but there are some traces of relationship, and some angles we are looking at," Arroyo was quoted in Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper as telling journalists in Tokyo during a four-day official visit.

Bin Laden, who is based in Afghanistan, has been on the Philippine watch-list for years, suspected of funding the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.

Both groups profess to fight for an Islamic state but the Abu Sayyaf, holding a U.S. missionary couple and 16 Filipinos hostage for 15 weeks on Basilan island, is seen largely as a bandit group whose main business is kidnap for ransom.

The military earlier this year also accused bin Laden's group of giving financial aid to the Abu Sayyaf to carry out attacks on U.S. interests in the Philippines and to assassinate Arroyo.

The military never presented evidence to back up its claim.

But the Abu Sayyaf has several times demanded the release of Islamic militants convicted in the 1993 plot to blow up the World Trade Center in exchange for freeing its hostages.

Ecstatic reports of rescued firefighters proved wrong. Anxious rescue workers fled and returned on a tide of conflicting reports of collapsing buildings. Fake bomb threats poured in. The toll of missing and confirmed dead headed toward 5,000.

And on Friday, it rained.

Confusing reports and worries of terrorist threats added misery to a city that had had enough, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said in a televised conference.

``There was a lot of misinformation today,'' a grim Giuliani said Thursday evening. ``There were false reports of two buildings collapsing. We've experienced of number false bomb threats, over 90.''

To the callers, he promised prosecution: ``This is a warning.''

Meanwhile, authorities jumped into action at area airports. Up to 10 people of Middle Eastern descent in two separate groups were detained at two New York airports - at least three removed at gunpoint from a Los Angeles-bound jet, sources told The Associated Press.

At least some of the men were carrying knives, according to The Washington Post and ABC News. The Post reported that both groups also had certificates from a Florida flight training school attended by some members of the previous hijacking teams.

Authorities were investigating whether it was another attempted hijacking or people related to the attack trying to flee the New York area.

Three days after hijacked passenger jets plowed into the twin 110-story skyscrapers, thunder and lightning brought a torrent of rain to the mammoth heap of ash and twisted wreckage now covering the World Trade Center Plaza. But sodden rescue workers kept at it during downpours that began around 1 a.m.

Friday's storm followed a disappointing 24 hours. No survivors were found, only false hope. Reports of five firefighters recovered alive in a buried SUV were carried by television stations and news agencies, including The Associated Press. Authorities were ecstatic. But the story wasn't true.

The accurate report: Two firefighters had been temporarily trapped in an underground air pocket and freed by other rescue workers.

Volunteers, already running on adrenaline and faith, were evacuated from a damaged office tower across the street from the Trade Center when the top 10 stories appeared unsteady. Workers fled, sprinting down the street.

No buildings fell. Giuliani said inspections Thursday found the buildings still standing were structurally sound.

At another spot, a chain of about 100 workers passed buckets of debris. A shout went up - a search dog had heard something.

``Quiet! quiet!''

Wheezing workers lowered their buckets and turned.

Seconds passed. A minute went by.

Then, those at the front of the line picked up their buckets, turned their faces, and went back to work.

Even the New York area's three busy airports suffered fits and starts. Open for the first time since Tuesday, they were abruptly closed after the detentions at the airports.

Worries spurred evacuations across the city - at Grand Central Terminal, the Port Authority Bus Terminal and CNN's midtown offices, among other locations.

Tens of thousands of residents in lower Manhattan remained homeless. From trendy TriBeCa to working-class Chinatown, investigators turned the five-square-mile area into a giant crime scene. Some lucky residents were allowed to retrieve a few belongings before being hustled out because of safety concerns and power outages.

But at an armory, in hospitals and on the streets of Manhattan, thousands of distraught families searched for the missing.

Almost every sentence began the same: ``Have you seen .

And nearly every plea ended the same: ``If you know anything, please call .

Driven by desperation, more than 2,500 people stood in line at the armory on 26th Street and Lexington Avenue, waiting to complete missing-persons reports. At St. Vincent's Hospital, where many of the victims from Tuesday's World Trade Center attacks were taken, relatives waited to find out if their loved ones had been admitted.

Others stood on the street, trying to persuade reporters to print or broadcast the names and photographs of relatives they could not find.

But the largest crowd by far swarmed the armory, where the line snaked around the building - an entire block.

Caroline Burbank, 29, tried to keep her mind from wandering disturbing paths. On Tuesday, her fiance, Geoff Campbell, had left early for a conference both planned to attend at the Trade Center. Campbell has not come home.

``You picture what the scenarios could have been. And that's the worst. If he was scared or if he was alone when the building went down,'' she said, breaking into sobs.

They had not set a wedding date. ``We were just going to go to the Caribbean and do it ourselves,'' she said.

``When he gets out, that's the first thing we'll do.''

At least some of the people detained Thursday were carrying knives, according to published reports. Authorities were investigating whether the two groups - detained at Kennedy and LaGuardia airports - were more would-be hijackers or people related to the attack trying to flee the New York area.

One man was arrested with a fake pilot's license, Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik said. Several of those detained had attempted to board airlines Tuesday around the time of the hijackings but were turned away and fled, a U.S. official requesting anonymity told the AP.

The incidents caused the region's three major airports - Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark, N.J. - to close again just hours after service was restored.

The Washington Post, citing unidentified government sources, reported that two armed groups of five people each were detained with knives, false identification and open tickets dated Tuesday - the day of the attacks. ABC News also reported that those detained were carrying knives.

A source familiar with the workings of the airline industry told the AP that law enforcement officers secretly boarded a plane at Kennedy using a catering cart. The officers, with weapons drawn, then removed the three from the plane.

One of those being detained was believed to have had flight training similar to that obtained by Tuesday's hijackers, the U.S. official said. The Post reported that those detained had certificates from the same Florida training school attended by some members of Tuesday's hijackings.

A passenger on a San Jose-bound American Airlines jet at Kennedy told The New York Times that officers boarded and closely questioned about 15 people.

``Anyone with dark skin or who spoke with an accent was taken aside and searched,'' passenger Mike Glass of Seattle told the Times. ``And then they went to any male with too much facial hair.''

Also, the Times, quoting unidentified law enforcement sources, reported that two men were detained from a Saudi aircraft at Newark after being identified on a terrorist watch list.

Separately, new information emerged about Tuesday's events. A law enforcement source told the AP that the FBI was investigating an altercation at Kennedy on Tuesday, and trying to understand whether that incident might have been an aborted hijacking attempt.

Tuesday's incident occurred about 9 a.m. - around the same time two hijacked jet airliners crashed into the World Trade Center towers. After passengers had boarded United Airlines Flight 23, bound for Los Angeles, officials told them it had been canceled

Three males refused to disembark and argued with the flight crew, who called airport security. The men vanished before security arrived, the source said.

There have been persistent, unconfirmed reports that a fifth hijacking had been attempted Tuesday but somehow averted.