WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) — A tough-talking White House Sunday promised retaliation by a “mighty giant” awakened by the world’s worst terror acts as New Yorkers looked to God and Wall Street to help them recover from attacks that reduced the World Trade Center to rubble.

The Bush administration pledged to avenge the attacks by hijacked airliners that plowed into the trade center’s twin towers and the Pentagon near Washington, but warned the fight could be long and difficult. The White House said well-heeled Saudi-born exile Osama bin Laden was its chief suspect.

Those who attacked the United States “made a terrible mistake … they have roused a mighty giant,” President Bush told reporters on return to Washington from his weekend retreat at Camp David.

“It’s time for us to win the first war of the 21st century so our children and grandchildren can live peacefully.”

While Washington talked of war, Pakistan was to take the first steps to head off a military crisis by meeting with neighboring Afghanistan on Monday to convince the ruling Taliban to hand over bin Laden, who has lived for years in the Islamic nation.

In the United States, life began returning to normal as airlines restored service suspended after the attacks and the financial world geared up to reopen U.S. markets Monday.

In a harbinger of what may come, Tokyo stocks plunged to a 17-year low Monday. The benchmark Nikkei average ended the morning down 488.20 points, or 4.88 percent at 9,520.69, after falling as low as 9,447.76, the lowest since December 1983.

Weary rescue workers swarmed for a sixth day over the smoldering World Trade Center ruins in the heart of New York’s financial district, but prospects dimmed that any of the nearly 4,957 people now listed as missing in the concrete and steel sarcophagus survived.

“The hope is still there that we might be able to save lives, but the reality is for the last several days we haven’t found anyone,” Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said.

In the most recent count, 190 people were confirmed dead, including 37 firefighters and rescue workers, Giuliani said. He cautioned it was “very possible” that some of the missing may never be found.

Across New York, mourners struggling to make sense of the carnage packed churches for memorial services and flocked to firehouses to pay tribute to “New York’s Bravest.”

More than 300 firefighters and emergency service workers are among the missing. Two hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center, another the Pentagon and a fourth crashed into a Pennsylvania field.

BUSH SAYS HE HAS FAITH IN ECONOMY’S RESILIENCY

Just three blocks from the trade center, the New York Stock Exchange prepared to resume trading after shutting down in the attacks’ aftermath.

Vice President Dick Cheney said the country was “quite possibly” in a recession, but both he and Bush looked forward to the markets’ reopening.

“I have great faith in the resiliency of the economy,” Bush said. “And no question about it, this incident affected our economy. But the markets open tomorrow, people go back to work. We’ll show the world.”

In a show of confidence, U.S. billionaire investor Warren Buffett, whose views on the market are followed closely by the financial world, said Sunday he would not sell stocks when the market reopened and might be a
buyer.

“I won’t be selling anything,” he said on CBS program “60 Minutes. “If prices fall significantly, there’s some things I might buy.”

While the world awaited Wall Street’s judgement, thousands of law enforcement and military personnel hunted down the attack perpetrators. U.S. officials said Sunday that two more “material witnesses” had been taken into custody, joining two others already detained. Such witnesses are usually considered important enough to affect the outcome of a case.

A further 25 people were taken into custody on alleged immigration violations and were being questioned, and the FBI was seeking more than 100 others for questioning.

BIN LADEN IS PRIME SUSPECT

Investigators hoped the arrests and detentions would eventually lead them to the man the White House said with growing conviction was their prime suspect — Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden, a 44-year-old Saudi-born multimillionaire, denied in a statement that he conducted the attacks, saying that Afghanistan would not permit it. He is believed to be responsible for previous attacks on the U.S. in retribution for ”desecration” by U.S. troops during the 1990-91 Gulf crisis.

Cheney was not buying bin Laden’s denial.

“I have no doubt that he and his organization played a significant role in this,” he said. “We are quite confident … that he is in fact the prime suspect.”

Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and other top administration officials stressed that there were more people and groups involved than just bin Laden, and the danger from them was far from over.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on ABC’s “This Week” the battle would take years. “It will be political, economic, diplomatic, military,” he said.

A small advance took place on the diplomatic front Sunday when Pakistan said it would meet the Taliban in Afghanistan Monday to ask them to turn over bin Laden.

Pakistan’s military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has pledged full cooperation with the United States. Worry that a military crisis could break out caused Pakistani stock markets to suspend trading for three days starting Monday.

Powell expressed cautious optimism that condemnations by Iran and Syria of Tuesday’s attacks could open the door to cooperation with two unlikely allies.

In Kabul, the spiritual leader of the Taliban movement, Mullah Mohammad Omar, called an urgent council of senior Islamic clerics to discuss the defense of his increasingly isolated nation.