Approved For Release 2003101/17 : CIA-RDP96-00789ROO3900250006-7
REUTM
and shettina World Trade Center bombing.
Mideast Immigrant Linked to Salameh
By Malcolm Gladwell
and Jim McGee
N4,ashillgtoli Po4t Staff Writcxs
FBI agents yesterday arrested
Nidal A. Ayyad of Maplewood, NJ.,
in connection with- the bombing of
the World Trade Center in New
York and said the Kuwaiti-born
chemical engineer had close ties to
Mohammed A. Salameh, the Jersey
City man arrested last week in the
investigation
Both are cbarged with aiding and
abetting in the underground explo-
sion Feb. 26 when five people were
killed and more than 1,000 injured.
In a complaint filed in U.S. Dis-
trict Court in Newark, FBI officials
said Salameh had made repeated
telephone calls to Ayyad from out-
side a rented storage shed contain-
ing chemicals that officials said
could be used to fashion an explo-
sive device.
- The complaint also said Salameh
had Ayyad's business card, that
Ayyad rented a red sedan believed
to have been driven to rent the van
known to have been used in the
bombing and that the two shared a
bank account.
Ayyad, 26, who immigrated from
Kuwait in 1985 and became a nat-
uralized citizen two. years ago, is.*a
1991 chemical engineering grad-
uate of Rutgers University in New
Brunswick, NJ. He was employed
as a process engineer at AlliedSig.
nal Inc. in Morristown, NJ., author-
ities said. Bail is to be set at a hear-
ing in Newark Friday. '
No further details were released
about @the extent of ties between
Salameh, 25, and Ayyad or What
FBI officials believe Ayyad's role in
the bombing may have been. But
James Esposito, special agent in
charge of the FBI's Newark office,
See NEW YOM A4, CoL 3
Approved For Release 2003/01/17 CIA-RDP96-00789ROO3900250006-7