The second plane hit the south tower of the World Trade Center

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The United States is in a state of shock after a day of attacks which have left thousands dead and New York's World Trade Center destroyed.

The Pentagon was also severely damaged by one of the three civilian airliners which hijackers turned into flying bombs. A fourth plane crashed in a field near Pittsburgh.

A state of emergency has been declared in Washington D.C. and the US has closed its airspace and its borders with Mexico and Canada.

American forces are on one of their highest states of alert and the Pentagon has deployed a naval battle group off the country's east coast to bolster air defences.

American Airlines Flight 11 was hijacked at 0825 Eastern Daylight Time (1225 GMT) and 18 minutes later crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

United Airlines Flight 175 - which had been hijacked within minutes of the first plane - was flown into the south tower at 0903 EDT (1303 GMT) causing another devastating explosion.

The second crash was captured live on news cameras trained on the burning north tower.

At 0940 EDT (1340 GMT) a third hijacked airliner - American Airlines Flight 77 - was flown into the side of the Pentagon in Washington.

An hour after the Boeing 767 slammed into the south tower of the World Trade Center the 110-storey building collapsed.

The north tower followed minutes later, compounding the destruction and loss of life.

Witnesses reported seeing people jumping from the towers just before they collapsed.

President Bush was reading to pupils at a Florida school when his chief of staff whispered news of the attacks to him.

He was flown to the US Strategic Command Centre at Nebraska - where the country's nuclear weapons are controlled - but is now on his way back to Washington.

He is expected to address the nation later this evening.

New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said the final number of dead may be "more than any of us can bear". 

Anna Lindh was a popular and able politician

She had been undergoing surgery for most of the night for injuries to her chest, stomach and arms, but doctors were unable to save her.

Her death has shocked the nation, and raised questions about Sweden's long tradition of accessibility for politicians. Like many officials, Anna Lindh did not use a bodyguard.

The attack took place yesterday at about 1600 local time (1400 GMT) when Mrs Lindh was shopping with a friend in the Nordiska Kompaniet shop in Stockholm.

A man described as tall, wearing a peaked cap and camouflage jacket, stabbed her several times before running off.

Mourners have been arriving all day to lay flowers on the pavement outside the shop.

National flags have been flying at half-mast, and a special service was held in Uppsala cathedral this evening.

The motive for her killing remains unknown.

However, there is speculation that it could be linked to her vigorous campaigning for a "yes" vote in a referendum on whether Sweden should join the euro. The vote is due to take place in three days' time.

Anna Lindh, who was married with two children, had been an active politician since her early twenties.

She had a meteoric rise through the ruling Social Democratic Party, and became foreign minister in 1998, at the age of 41.

Her solid reputation and her widespread popularity led her to be widely tipped as a possible successor to Prime Minister Goran Persson.

Mr Persson described her death as "beyond belief" and said it had hurt Sweden's open and democratic society.

"Sweden has lost one of its most important representatives," he said. "It feels unreal, it is difficult to truly understand."

Security has been tightened around government buildings, but police said there was as yet no evidence of a political motive.

Her death has also stirred memories of the murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was shot in the back, coincidentally on the same street as the attack on Mrs Lindh, as he walked home from the cinema with his son and his wife in 1986.

deploy: place troops or weapons in battle formation（展开；配置）

inflict: impose something unpleasant（造成）

camouflage: intended to make the wearer of a garment made of this fabric hard to distinguish from the background（伪装）