G3-176- f° ‘trade Center Bomnthrrigs ee 20" "worto ra eek “Clarity of Motive’ to Ryder employees, had arrived ick up the van in a red GM sedan accompanied by a companion. ler officials said that roughly two rs after the explosion, Salameh eared at the office and claimed van had been stolen the night gre. He asked for his $400 dam- deposit, but was told he must t file a police report. salameh’s name was already in the ’s files. In 1990 he had demon- ited publicly on behalf of El-Say- Nosair, an Islamic firebrand who been charged with, and acquitted the 1991 slaying of Jewish De- 3e League founder Meir Kahane. ameh had visited Nosair at the ‘e prison in Attica, N.Y., where he 3 serving a sentence on lesser rges. jalameh gave investigators a par- ilar suspect to consider, and, as sortant, drew their attention to a up of activists who orbited ough the larger Islamic commu- 7 in New York and New Jersey { attended the Abu Bakr mosque Brooklyn and the Al-Salam sque in Jersey City. Rahman had -ached at both mosques, The FBI had not previously con- ered these activists to be terror- 3, merely passionate militants. Yet . FBI had access to intelligence wrmation about them gathered as” result of at least three occur- ices: the prosecution of Nosair; - emergence of Rahman as a pres- ¢ in the New Jersey-New York ymic community; and the 1991 irder of Mustafa Shalabi. The Nosair trial was a watershed mnt among Middle Eastern mili- ts in New York. Kahane, a hero to ny Jewish radicals, was viewed as ymbol of Zionist oppression to [s- tic radicals, During the trial, the al groups staged demonstrations, nn annoeite cides of the court- ment blames the Islamic Group for a series of bombings and murders, most especially the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Egyptian security forces are en- gaged in a massive, nationwide crackdown aimed at fundamentalist militants, including members of the Islamic Group. The government has jailed 700 suspected extremists in response to a wave of violence that has left nearly 150 people dead, at the hands of either police or extrem- ists. Before he emigrated to the United States, Rahman was acquitted of in- volvement in Sadat’s death, but an FBI intelligence briefing during the Persian Gulf War persuaded at least one senior official to believe that he posed a potentially serious threat from his new base in New Jersey. When Rahman arrived in the Unit- ed States, Shalabi found him a res- idence. Thereafter, they raised funds for the Afghan resistance, but ulti- mately had a falling out, according to published statements by several as- sociates. In March 1991, Shalabi was found dead in his Brooklyn home, shot and knifed. There have been no arrests. In addition, five months before the trade center bombing, about 20 members of the two mosques who attended Nosair’s trial or visited him at Attica were subpoenaed by a fed- eral grand jury, according to the New York Times. Ahmed A. Satta, a postal worker, told the Times that FBI agents grilled him about Nosair, Shalabi and Rahman. To officials, then, the circumstan- tial clues being gathered by agents in New Jersey seemed to fit into a larg- er context. For pPeved sp New York state driver’s ved FSER e his residence as 57 Prospect Park, SW. Rrooklyn—the home of [brahim jae FOS RAE ARRAS -0 DE CENTER SOMBING SUSPECTS MOHAMMAD SALAMEH, 25 Jordanian. Jersey City, N.J., handyman arrested March 4, Indicted in the bombing. BILAL ALKAISI, 26 Jordanian. New York area resident arrested March 25. Charged with aiding and abetting the bombing. | SOURCE: News services and staff reports office, agents arrested him. In his pockets, they found the business card of Nidal Ayyad, 25, a chemical engi- neer. Eventually, the FBI executed at least 10 search warrants in New Jer- sey. Agents found evidence connecting Salameh to a rental unit at the Space . Station Storage facility in Jersey City. Employees identified Salameh as the man who rented a shed in No- vember under the name “Kamal Ibra- ham.” Upon searching this unit March 5, agents discovered several hundred pounds of chemicals that, if properly combined and triggered with a small explosive, could produce a powerful blast. They also discovered that the chemicals—hundreds of pounds of urea and nitric acid—were purchased FBI that the day before the bombing they saw a man they believe was Sg" suspects have been charged in connection wit indicted in the bombing and remain in custody. sixth reportedly has fled the country. NIDAL AYYAD, 25 Kuwaiti. Maplewood, N.J., chemical engineer arrested March 10. Indicted in the bombing. IBRAHIM ELGABROWNY, 42 Held Iraqi pass- port. Brooklyn contractor ar- rested March 4. Charged with obstruction and possessing fraud- ulent passports. h the World Trade Center bombing. Four were jointly One is being held on obstruction charges and the MAHMUD ABOUHALIMA, 33 Egyptian. Wood- bridge, N.J., cab driver arrested in Egypt and brought to the U.S. March 24. Indicted in the bombing. RAMZI AHMED YOUSEF, 25 Jersey City, N.J., resident who reportedly fled the country. Indicted in the bombing. ! t i ! i ! i \ i —Compiled by Barbara J. Saffir * Ayyad’s office phone. Agents learned that Salameh and Ayyad had a joint account at a local bank. They discov- ered that on Feb. 15 Ayyad had rented from National Car Rental the same type of car that Salameh ar- rived in at the Ryder van rental of- fice. Moreover, “Salameh” was listed as an additional driver on the rental car. A witness from the Ryder office identified Ayyad as the same man who accompanied Salameh when he rented the van. On March 10 agents descended on Ayyad’s first-floor apartment at 60 Boyden Ave., Maplewood, NJ. In- side, they found what a prosecutor later described as a modified timing mechanism that an explosives expert described as a time delay firing sys- tem. Ayyad was carrying an Amer- ican Express card in the name of Bilal 44s) itness told the OPsHROb Fan edBHE2, accom- panied Salameh to the storage shed “on several occasions.” THE WASHINGTON POST purported involvement with the Af- ghan resistance. Associates said Abouhalima traveled to Pakistan for military training and that he was a follower of Rahman and sometimes served as his driver. Rahman has dis- puted this claim and publicly de- nounced the bombing.) Aside from these characterizations of Abouhalima—which will likely be contested in court—there has been no public disclosure of what direct evidence, if any, connects him to the bombing. He was eventually returned to New York. U.S. officials have re- fused to discuss their knowledge of the arrest or treatment of Abou- halima. For weeks, the trade center bomb- ing was an incomplete act of terrors ism because it lacked a political mess sage. But on March 28 the New York Times published a letter it received four days after the bombing. Th@ Times quoted a law enforcemeng source who said there was “incantro-