/1-J
'irade r
Center Bomwiftp
F_.kek 'Clarity of Motive'
o Ryder employees, had arrived
ck up the van in a red GM sedan
accompanied by a companion.
@r officials said that roughly two
s after the explosion, Salameh
ared at the office and claimed
van had been stolen the night
@e. He asked for his $400 dam-
deposit, but was told he must
file a police report.
dameh's name was already in the
s files. In 1990 he had demon-
:ed publicly on behalf of El-Say-
@osair, an Islamic firebrand who
been charged with, and acquitted
he 1991 slaying of Jewish De-
e League founder Meir Kahane.
meh had visited Nosair at the
prison in Attica, N.Y., where he
serving a sentence on lesser
ges,
ilameh gave investigators a par-
ar suspect to consider, and, as
)rtant, drew their attention to a
ip of activists who orbited
ugh the larger Islamic commu-
in New York and New Jersey
attended the Abu Bakr mosque
Brooklyn and the Al-Salam
que in Jersey City. Rahman had
iched at both mosques.
he FBI had not previously con-
red these activists to be terror-
merely passionate militants. Yet
FBI had access to intelligence
rmation about them gathered as
esult of at least three occur-
:es: the prosecution of Nosair;
emergence of Rahman as a pres-
2 in the New Jersey-New York
rnic community; and the 1991
-der of Mustafa Shalabi.
'he Nosair trial was a watershed
it among Middle Eastern mili-
s in New York. Kahane, a hero to
iy Jewish radicals, was viewed as
.mbol of Zionist oppression to Is-
1c radicals. During the trial, the
I groups staged demonstrations,
nn oonosifp sides nf thp rniirt-
e 2003/01/17V=Ikf)p-fPME990;lf&RQMING SUSPECTS
ix suspects have been charged in connection with the World Trade Center bombing. Four were Jointty
S indicted in the bombing and remain in custody. One is being held on obstruction charges and the
sixth reportedly has fled the country.
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.
	MOHAMMAD	NIDAL AYYAD, 25
ment blames the Islamic Group for a	
SALAMEH, 25	
Kuwaiti.
series of bombings and murders,	Jordanian	Maplewood, N.J.,
most especially the assassination of	.
N J
Jersey City	chemical engineer
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in	,
handyman	arrested
1981.		March 10

Egyptian security forces are en-	
arrested March	.

Indicted in the
gaged in a massive, nationwide	4. Indicted in the	
bombing.
crackdown aimed at fundamentalist	bombing.	
militants, including members of the		
Islamic Group. @he government has		
jailed 700 suspected extremists in	BILAL ALKAISI
26	IBRAHIM
response to a wave of violence that	,
Jordanian	
ELGABROWNY, 41
has left nearly 150 people dead, at	.
New York area	Held Iraqi pass-
the hands of either police or extrem-
i
t	resident arrested	port. Brooklyn
s
s.
Before he emigrated to the United	March 25.	contractor ar-
rested March 4

States, Rahman was acquitted of in-	
Charged with	.

Charged with
volvement in Sadat's death, but an	aiding and	
obstruction and
FBI intelligence briefing during the	abetting the	possessing fraud

Persian Gulf War persuaded at least	bombing.	
ulent passports.
one senior official to believe that he	SOURCE: News services and staff reports	
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-	office, agents Iarrested him. In his	Ayyad's office phone. Agents learned

idence. Thereafter, they raised funds	pockets, they found the business card	that Salameh and Ayyad had a joint

for the Afghan resistance, but ulti-	of Nidal Ayyad, 25, a chemical engi-	account at a local bank. They discov-

mately had a falling out, according to	neer.	
ered that on Feb. 15 Ayyad had
published statements by several as-	Eventually, the FBI executed at	rented from National Car Rental the
sociates. In March 1991, Shalabi was	least 10 search warrants in New Jer-	same type of car that Salameh ar-
found dead in his Brooklyn home,	sey.	rived in at the Ryder van rental of-
shot and knifed. There have been no	Agents found evidence connecting	fice. Moreover, "Salameh" was listed
arrests.	Salameh to a rental unit at the Space	as an additional driver on the rental
In addition, five months before the	Station Storage facility in Jersey	car. A witness from the Ryder office
trade center bombing, about 20	City. Employees identified Salameh	identified Ayyad as the same man
members of the two mosques who	as the man who rented a shed in No-	who accompanied Salameh when he
attended Nosair's trial or visited him	vember under the name "Kamal Ibra-	rented the van.
at Attica were subpoenaed by a fed-	ham."	On March 10 agents descended on
eral grand jury, according to the	Upon searching this unit March 5,	Ayyad's first-floor apartment at 60
New York Times. Ahmed A. Satta, a	agents discovered several hundred	Boyden Ave., Maplewood, NJ. In-
postal worker, told the Times that	pounds of chemicals that, if properly	side, they found what a prosecutor
FBI agents grilled him about Nosair,	combined and triggered with a small	later described as a modified timing
Shalabi and Rahman.	explosive, could produce a powerful	mechanism that an explosives expert
To officials, then, the circumstan-	blast. They also discovered that the	described as a time delay firing sys-
tial clues being gathered by agents in	chemicals-hundreds of pounds of	tem. Ayyad was carrying an Amer-
New Jersey seemed to fit into a larg-	urea and nitric acid-were purchased	ican Express card in the name of Bilal
er context. For e ample, Salaraph's
R
N
Y
k
AWPM4 r
9
F	in November by "Kamal Ibrahani," leas Id the
'
eleg"
?ppfpl/
l7
i
~;K4~PB96-CM4~AN40$§Owi'
,
ew
or
state
i.
d
his residence as 57 Prospect Park,	a
e
o
p
FBI that the day before the bombing	ccom-
a
panied Salameh to the storage shed
'@ W Rronklvn-thp hnmp nf ThrqhiTn	thev saw a man thev believ,@ was	"nn.,;(,vo-.r2l necisions."
RAMZI AHMED
YOUSEF, 25
Jersey City, N.J.,
resident who
reportedly fled the
country. Indicted
in the bombing.
-Compiled by Barbara J. Saffir
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 bomh@-
ing was an incomplete act of terrorc
ism because it lacked a political meE@-,
sage. But on March 28 the New Yort
Times published a letter it received
four days after the bombing. Thi-
Times quoted a law enforcement
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