Armed-Terrorists Tale Discounted by Officials

Federal law enforcement authorities said Thursday that an extensive investigation has failed to yield any evidence to confirm a report that three Arab terrorists may have recently entered the United States illegally through Tijuana.

During a news conference at the U.S. Border Patrol station here, officials of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Border Patrol responded with open skepticism to an account given by an unidentified Mexican man who told authorities two weeks ago that he had guided three armed persons, possibly Arabs, into the United States on April 17, three days after the U.S. attack on Libya.

On Thursday, officials raised the possibility that the whole matter is a hoax.

“We have been unable in all of the investigating process . . . to verify that those individuals did in fact come into the United States,” said Alan Eliason, chief of the San Diego Border Patrol sector.

Asked how he would view the evidence if he were a betting man, Eliason replied, “I would bet that this was a fabricated story, but I’m not going to take a chance.”

Gary L. Penrith, special agent in charge of the FBI office in San Diego, indicated that authorities probably will request that the man who provided the information take a lie-detector test.

“We have nobody who corroborated it in any way,” Penrith said. “So we’re working with one individual telling us a story, so we’re not putting a whole heck of a lot of credibility to it.”

Nonetheless, the report--coming at a time when U.S. authorities worldwide are on alert against terrorist attacks--has spurred an extensive investigation that the FBI said is continuing. Police agencies from San Diego to Los Angeles have been given descriptions and composite sketches of the suspects.

“It’s like a bomb scare,” Penrith said. “You’ve got to be there. It’s something that you have to do. But we have nobody else saying anything that would lead us to believe that there is a group coming in at this time.”

U.S. authorities said they decided to speak out on the matter Thursday after the Orange County Register published details of a confidential FBI report outlining the incident. The FBI had circulated the report among police agencies in Southern California.

Officials said they previously had delayed making the matter public in part to avoid tipping off the terrorists, if they exist. The source of the information was considered credible enough to merit an investigation.

“Obviously, when you’re in this kind of situation, you’re going to follow every kind of lead to see if you can verify it or not,” Eliason said. “If it is true, public attention would certainly drive those kinds of people underground. We’d want to find them first.”

Authorities also said they avoided publicizing the incident to avoid undue public alarm.

“We don’t want that type of hysteria in this country,” Penrith said. “We don’t want to say, ‘The border’s open and here come the gentlemen with guns and they’re headed for Los Angeles to do a job’ when we have no idea that that’s happening.”

Authorities provided this account of the incident:

About 9 a.m. on April 17, a Mexican man standing near the border about five miles east of the port of entry at San Ysidro was approached by two men and a woman and was asked to guide them into the United States. They flashed a roll of bills, but he refused their offer. He said he changed his mind when one of the men pulled a weapon, described as a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol.

The man said he also noticed weapons in the waistbands of the other two people, whom he described as wearing camouflage pants. Two were carrying backpacks, but the source said he never saw the contents. All were said to be healthy and in their 20s. They never told him their destination.

One of the men spoke heavily accented Spanish. The man said he believed they spoke Arabic to each other. His only knowledge of the language comes from exposure to Arabic-speaking co-workers at a restaurant in the United States.

The man told investigators he led the three through the rugged canyons of the U.S.-Mexican border area. The northward trek of 15 miles lasted about five hours.

Finally, the guard said, he was able to lose the three through a ruse near the intersection of Jamacha Road and Sweetwater Springs Boulevard. He said he returned to Mexico and notified the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana that afternoon. Soon after, the investigation began.

Authorities said they had retraced the route with the individual but found no evidence to support his story. Eliason doubted that any terrorists would make the trip in broad daylight.

“There was absolutely no other evidence, physical evidence, at the scene, nor has there been any other evidence in our investigative process that has led us to believe that this is indeed true,” Eliason said.