The White House and Air Force One, were targets for yesterday’s attacks on the US, according to "credible evidence" the FBI says.
The Bureau said that between three and six people were involved in each hijacking and that bomb threats were made aboard some of the aircraft.
FBI director Mr Robert Muller told a press conference that many of the hijackers and their associates have been identified but as yet there were no arrests.
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At the same press conference, US Attorney Genereal Mr John Ashcroft said some of the suspected terrorists were trained as pilots in the United States.
Police are tonight hunting two men they believe were involved in yesterday’s attacks who were trained at a Florida pilots school.
The FBI have sent a bulletin to law enforcement agencies across America indentifying the two suspects.
The home of the two men was searched but it is not known if anybody was taken into custody.
Police also released details of the cars
both men were believed to be driving.
The hunt came as the FBI said it was investigating whether five Arab men, one a trained pilot, whose names were on passenger lists for the two flights hijacked in Boston, were the perpetrators.
And in Florida, an unknown number of people were taken into custody and interviewed; while in Boston, heavily-armed police searched a hotel room and said although it was empty, they found information linked to the possible perpetrators of the attacks.
A husband and wife, whose house the two suspects stayed at for a week in July 2000, said, after being interviewed by police in south Florida, that FBI agents had told them they believed the men were implicated in the terror attack.
Mr Charlie Voss, who was interviewed with his wife Drew, said the two men had slept at their home while they were students at Huffman Aviation, an air training school.
The five Arab men were identified after a hired car taken from a car parking area at Boston Logan Airport was found to have an Arabic flight training manual and a copy of the Koran.
Police had been led to the car by a man who reported having a dispute with a group of Arab men as he parked his own car, the Boston Heraldreported.
Two of the men, including the trained pilot, were brothers while one man was traced to the United Arab Emirates, the newspaper said.
In the airport, FBI agents combed seats for DNA evidence and removed six bags of possible evidence for forensic examination.
Another car was seized in Portland, Maine, where two men suspected to be the hijackers boarded a flight to Boston before taking the hijacked flight. They were reported to have arrived from Canada shortly beforehand.
Cigarette ends found near the car are to be tested for DNA evidence.
A train from Boston to New York was also stopped near Portland were three people were detained.
A police spokesman told CNNthere were people "in custody" in Boston, but they had not been arrested and were believed to have information relevant to the investigation.
The police action came as the American Justice Department confirmed it believed the hijackers included trained pilots.
PA & AFP