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1993-04-17
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03/02/1993 NEW YORK (AP) -- Investigators combing the World Trade Center
bombing site said Tuesday they were focusing on terrorist groups,
including a Palestinian organization that allegedly threatened to set
off a bomb here a month ago.
"We're looking at several groups. I wouldn't want to name the groups.
I'd probably leave some out," said James Fox, head of the FBI's New York
office.
Pieces of a van were recovered from the garage where the bomb went
off Friday, although Fox's office wouldn't comment further on a reported
link between the vehicle and the blast that killed at least five people.
"If it was a car bomb, it may very well have been a van bomb," Fox
said without elaboration.
The names of two groups came up in response to questions at the news
conference: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an
extremist Palestinian group, and Hamas, a Muslim fundamentalist group
that has opposed negotiations with Israel.
In a Jan. 22 phone call to the U.S. Embassy in Algeria, someone
claiming to represent the PFLP threatened a bombing in New York City
within 48 hours unless Palestinian deportees were returned to Israel,
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
A second call two days later extended the deadline to Jan. 26, which
passed without incident. Kelly said such a threat was not uncommon in
New York, and that authorities receive 10 to 12 terrorist bomb threats a
year.
In reply to a question about Hamas, Fox said: "That's a group with a
known propensity for violence. That's a group we're looking at, one of
several groups."
Earlier, FBI spokesman Joe Valiquette wouldn't comment on published
reports about a Serbian connection. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly
later confirmed on CBS-TV that a phone call received by investigators
about an hour after the blast said it was no accident and connected it
to the Serbian cause.
But Radovan Karadzic, the leader of Bosnian Serbs and a delegate to
U.N. talks in New York aimed at settling the conflict in the former
Yugoslavia, said Tuesday night: "None of Serbs can be connected with
this tragedy. ... This is not in Serbian tradition. Serbs have never had
any secretive terrorist organization."
While investigators searched for clues and suspects, authorities took
another approach in the search for the bombers: a $200,000 reward for
information leading to their arrest and conviction. Half the money came
from the city, its biggest reward offer ever; the rest came from the
Port Authority, which operates the trade center.
Four days after the blast, families of four of the victims buried
their dead and officials announced plans for a "small and symbolic"
memorial at the World Trade Center. But one man believed lost in the
explosion suddenly resurfaced. Another person remained missing.
--- QuickBBS 2.76 Ovr
* Origin: Gun Control=Criminals & Police vs. the Unarmed. (1:231/110)