-Caveat Lector-
http://www.msnbc.com/msn/347663.asp
California explosives theft probed
Second large heist in a month worries law enforcement agencies
MSNBC staff and wire reports
Dec. 29 - As a private New Year's Eve party in Seattle's Space Needle became
the latest victim of millennial terrorism fears, investigators on Wednesday
were looking for clues in the theft of 200 pounds of explosives from a
police bunker in California - the second heist of large amounts of
explosives this month.
DYNAMITE, GUNPOWDER and the military plastic explosive C4 were stolen from a
police bomb-squad bunker near Fresno, raising fears of New Year's Eve
violence. But the blasting caps were left behind, prompting one expert to
suggest there wasn't much to worry about.
The explosives - 125 pounds of dynamite and C4, plus 75 pounds of gunpowder
- were stolen between Saturday and Monday from the reinforced concrete
bunker 20 miles northeast of Fresno.
"We have a great concern, and we're not going to hide that concern," said
Fresno Police Chief Ed Winchester.
'THREE LEVELS OF SECURITY'
Police Lt. Andy Hall said the thieves broke through "three levels of
security" - a fence topped with barbed wire, several locks and a heavy steel
door - to gain entry to the bunker, which is half-embedded in a hill.
"We don't know if it was connectedin any way to ... the New Year's Eve
celebration, and we hate to speculate on anything like that. But we're
certainly taking it as a breach of security and a high risk factor," he
said.
Despite the theft, Fresno Mayor Jim Patterson said the city's millennium
celebrations will go on as planned.
Authorities said the danger posed by the explosives would depend on the
expertise of the thieves.
Hall said a demolition expert could "take down a high-rise" with the amount
of explosives taken. "But if you put it all in a box and set it next to a
wall, it wouldn't do much other than to destroy some of that wall," he said.
But Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc. in Maryland, said
the danger was minimal since the blasting caps weren't stolen.
'CHILDISH PRANK' SUSPECTED
"The people don't know what they were doing, or they certainly would have
taken the detonators. It sounds like a childish prank," said Loizeaux, whose
company has demolished more than 1,200 buildings. "The gasoline in your gas
tank is technically more dangerous than this product, because you can set it
off with a match."
Last week, authorities reported that nearly 1,000 pounds of explosives were
stolen from a flagstone quarry north of Flagstaff, Ariz.
Investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms have not
identified any suspects in the theft of about 750 pounds of ammonium
nitrate, 225 pounds of dynamite, 6,000 feet of detonation cord and roughly
20 blasting caps.
The materials are commonly used in mining, but also could be used to make a
bomb, authorities said. Ammonium nitrate was the main ingredient in the
4,800-pound bomb used to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City in 1995, in which 168 people were killed.
The Arizona theft has not been linked to any terroristic threat. But the
amount of explosives taken - enough to level a high-rise - has raised
concerns and suspicions.
SEATTLE CANCELS CELEBRATION
Such concerns on Tuesday caused the city of Seattle to cancel its planned
New Year's Eve celebration, which had been expected to attract 50,000
people.
Concern in the city has been growing since Dec. 14, when suspected terrorist
Ahmed Ressam was arrested at the U.S.-Canadian border with alleged
bomb-making materials packed into his rental car. Investigators found that
Ressam, an Algerian who had been living in Canada, had booked a motel room
within blocks of the Seattle Center.
The decision to cancel the celebration at the city's Seattle Center claimed
its final victim late Tuesday, when organizers of a private party planned
for the Space Needle said they too were staying away.
Party organizer Wendy Warren said the gala millennial event planned a decade
earlier by a group of friends and family members from Portland, Ore., had
been scrapped. She gave no reason for the decision, but other members of the
group said fears of violence were behind the action.
Dean Nelson, the president of the Space Needle Corp., told the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer, said he was "disappointed."
He would not say how much Warren's group had spent to rent the Space Needle,
nor would he say whether she would get any of her money back.
Earlier Tuesday, Seattle Mayor Paul Schell defended his decision to cancel
the city's New Year's Eve bash even though no specific threat to the city
had been uncovered, saying, "Though we are comfortable that Seattle is not a
target (of terrorists), the FBI can't assure us that there's no risk."
Schell cited the Ressam's arrest two weeks earlier in nearby Port Angeles,
Wash., the need to have police available to respond to possible Y2K computer
problems and the fact that the city is still recovering from recent violent
street confrontations surrounding the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting
earlier this month as reasons for his decision.
BATTENING DOWN THE HATCHES
Other cities were going ahead with planned celebrations while tightening up
security.
Crews were in the process of welding shut manhole covers and placing
security cameras atop lampposts for New York City's millennium party in
Times Square. Thousands of police officers were assigned to the gathering,
the largest U.S. New Year's celebration.
"This is New York," Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said. "If you probably tried to
cancel it, instead of 2 million showing up, 4 million people would."
Mayors of other major cities also said they had no plans to back down on
celebration plans because of potential violence, and they vowed to do
everything within their power to ensure the safety of celebrants.
Meanwhile, FBI agents attempting to determine whether Ressam was part of a
wider conspiracy aimed at ushering in the new millennium with violence in
the United States indicated they were puzzled by something they have not
found in the car he was driving when he was arrested.
In court documents made public Tuesday, the FBI said its agents had not been
able to find a blasting cap or other detonating device.
In an initial search of Ressam's rental car - now impounded at Federal
Center South located to the south of Seattle - U.S. Customs inspectors found
explosive chemicals, four timing devices and urea - a fertilizer that can be
used to make bombs.
NO DETONATOR FOUND
But, according to the court documents, a more thorough search afterward
failed to turn up a detonator.
"One primary device that has not yet been located is a detonator for this
device, such as a blasting detonator or other device initiator," FBI Special
Agent Lesley Jackson states in an affidavit in support of the search
warrant, dated Dec. 18.
The documents also indicated that Ressam had more powerful bomb-making
materials in his possession than had previously been reported. Investigators
found HMTD and RDX - both components of military munitions.
The RDX, which is commonly used to make plastic explosives, was found in a
medicine bottle in Ressam's possession, sources told NBC News.
Canadian and U.S. authorities have said they are searching for three
suspected accomplices of Ressam, one of whom is believed to be Abdelmajed
Dahoumane, 32. News reports have identified Dahoumane as the person who
stayed with Ressam in a Vancouver, British Columbia, motel in the weeks
before Ressam's arrest.
TICKET AGENTS INTERVIEWED
Over the weekend, the FBI interviewed airline ticket agents in Bellingham,
Wash., after it was reported that one agent remembered selling a ticket to
Dahoumane.
A source told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the man
paid for a ticket from Bellingham to Seattle, with a connecting flight to
Las Vegas. The flight was later canceled.
On Monday, the FBI said there is no credible evidence that anyone suspected
of terrorism has traveled to Las Vegas in recent weeks.
Tensions also were heightened by the arrest on Dec. 19 of a Canadian woman
and an Algerian man at a remote border crossing in Vermont. The woman, Lucia
Garofalo, has been linked by federal prosecutors to what they described as a
terrorist group operating in Europe and Algeria.
INDICTED IN SEATTLE
Ressam was indicted last week by a federal grand jury in Seattle on charges
of making false statements to Customs officers and trying to bring
explosives and bomb-timing devices into the country. He pleaded not guilty
to all charges last Wednesday and a trial is tentatively set for Feb. 22.
He has not cooperated with investigators since his arrest, sources say.
Ressam and several of his associates are said by law enforcement sources to
be members of a faction of Algeria's Armed Islamic Group, which has been
conducting a deadly campaign against the Algerian government and civilians
that has spilled over into Europe.
French authorities say Ressam is a suspect in a 1996 subway bombing in Paris
that killed four people and injured 91.
U.S. and Canadian intelligence officials trying to unravel the web
connecting various international extremist groups disagree on whether Ressam
has direct links to Osama bin Laden, a fugitive Saudi billionaire accused of
bankrolling terrorist groups around the globe.
The Canadian intelligence service has indicated that Ressam underwent
training in Pakistan or Afghanistan in the early 1990s at terrorist boot
camps funded by bin Laden.
But U.S. officials say that while Ressam apparently is a member of the Armed
Islamic Group, which has received support from bin Laden, there is no
indication that the Saudi directed or knew of Ressam's activities.
Authorities have not been able to establish any links between Ressam and the
pair arrested in Vermont.
NBC News correspondent Pete Williams, NBC News producer Robert Windrem
andThe Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
=======================
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