'trade Center Bo r
910
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
)re. He asked for his $400 dam-
deposit, but was told he must
t file a police report.
;alameh's name was already in the
s files. In 1990 he had demon-
ited publicly on behalf of EI-Say-
Nosair, an Islamic firebrand who
been charged with, and acquitted
the 1991 slaying of Jewish De-
3e League founder Meir Kahane.
imeh had visited Nosair at the
.e prison in Attica, N.Y., where he
; serving a sentence on lesser
.rges.
3alameh gave investigators a par-
ilar suspect to consider, and, as
)ortant, drew their attention to a
up of activists who orbited
ough the larger Islamic commu-
7 in New York and New Jersey
I attended the Abu Bakr mosque
Brooklyn and the Al-Salam
sque in Jersey City. Rahman had
@ached at both mosques.
rhe FBI had not previously con-
ered these activists to be terror-
merely passionate militants. Yet
FBI had access to intelligence
)rmation about them gathered as'
result of at least three occur-
@ces: the prosecution of Nosair;
@ emergence of Rahman as a pres-
@e in the New Jersey-New York
imic community; and the 1991
irder of Mustafa Shalabi.
Fhe Nosair trial was a watershed
mt among Middle Eastern mili-
ts in New York. Kahane, a hero to
ny Jewish radicals, was viewed as
ymbol of Zionist oppression to Is-
iic radicals, During the trial, the
al groups staged demonstrations,
t)n onnn-,itp -,idpq of tfip rourt-
lease 2003/01/17MM"ANUM-FERSOMBING SUSPECTS
Four were jointly
Six suspects have been charged in connection with the World Trade Center bombing.
indicted in the bombing and remain in custody. One is being held on obstruction charges and the
sixth reportedly has fled the country.
	MOHAMMAD	NIDAL AYYAD, 25
ment blames the Islamic Group for a	V.
SALAMEH, 25	
Kuwaiti.
series of bombings and murders,	
Jordanian	
Maplewood, N.J.,
most especially the assassination of	.
11.
.
N.J
Jersey City	chemical engineer
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in	,
., Cd
handyman	arrested
1981.	
arrested March	March 10.
A
Egyptian security forces are en-		-
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. The government has		
jailed 700 suspected extremists in	
BILAL ALKAISI
26	
IBRAHIM
response to a wave of violence that	,
Jordanian	
42
ELGABROWNY
has left nearly 150 people dead, at	.
New York area	,
Held Iraqi pass-
the hands of either police or extrem-	resident arrested	port. Brooklyn
ists.
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: Newsservices 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 arrested 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
put@ished 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 montlis 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, N.J. 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 E xpress card in the name of Bilal
er context. For A1*pJV4daF15VFel

'
New York state d
ic
ns
i
li
t	
_0#0"ftV V s told the
64t"JMr4ft@
a
e III PI e t tpp
#0 M
t
r
ver
s
e
e
s
e	g	accom-
a
a
his residence as 57 Prospect Park,	FBI that the day before the bombing	panied Salameh to the storage shed
S.W_ Brookivn-the home of Ibrahim	they saw a man they believe was	"on several occasions."
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.
RAIVIZI 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 bomb,
ing was an incomplete act of terror.,
ism because it lacked a political me!@-,
sage. But on March 28 the New Yorl
Times published a letter it received
four days after the bombing. Th4
'1-iines quoted a law enforcemeiij
@Vhn -niri thprp wP7, "inrontro@