Terrorism Expert Called In on Probe of Van Bombing

The FBI has summoned an expert in terrorist explosives to San Diego to help investigate last week’s bombing of a van owned by Navy Capt. Will Rogers III, a federal source said Tuesday as the cruiser Vincennes sailed for the first time since the incident.

Hours before Rogers took the Vincennes to sea, a bomb threat was called in to the La Jolla private school where his wife, Sharon Rogers, is a teacher. A search found no evidence of a bomb, and San Diego Police Lt. William L. Brown said it was thought to be a crank call.

Mrs. Rogers took the week off and has been under the protection of Navy security officials since last Friday’s explosion, which occurred while she was driving the family van to the school. She was unhurt.

The explosives expert from the San Francisco office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms will take a close look at the destroyed van hoping to pick up clues to the origin of the pipe bomb that detonated while Rogers’ wife was driving to work last Friday, the source said.

Another federal investigator said the San Francisco specialist will find little to work with. Only a few pipe fragments were recovered from the scene at a busy La Jolla intersection, and there was no chemical residue left from the powder charge to allow agents to trace the explosive’s origins, he said.

The Vincennes sailed from the 32nd Street Naval Station with Rogers in command Tuesday morning for a routine daylong training exercise off the San Diego coast, with the crew “in high spirits and very motivated,” according to Chief Petty Officer Craig Huebler, a Navy spokesman.

Rogers commanded the Vincennes on a tour of the Persian Gulf last July when the cruiser shot down an unarmed Iranian airliner with 290 aboard, mistaking it for an attacking fighter jet. Rogers is scheduled to remain in command until May 27, when he takes over as commander of the Tactical Training Group at Point Loma.

FBI officials in San Diego would not comment on the continued possibility of an organized terrorist act being responsible for the bombing. “We are not overlooking any eventuality, including a terrorist bombing,” said Gary Laturno, an FBI spokesman in San Diego.

However, an FBI spokesman in Washington said Tuesday that agents in San Diego were circulating a composite drawing of a “Middle Eastern-appearing” man reported by neighbors near the Rogerses’ La Jolla home in recent weeks. The drawing was not released to the news media.

He emphasized that the drawing is not of a suspect. Instead, he said the agents were using the composite drawing for “lead-checking, nothing more.” He added that investigators have not linked the bombing to “any group or motive.”

Two neighbors of the Rogerses, who asked not to be identified, told The Times that FBI agents asked them about three Middle Eastern-looking men in a green BMW who reportedly inquired where the Vincennes captain lived.

According to one neighbor, an FBI agent who visited her Saturday said the men asked someone on the street to point out the Rogers home and also asked which vehicle in the Rogerses’ driveway was usually driven by Mrs. Rogers.

“I don’t get the sense there are any red-hot leads,” said another federal source familiar with the case.

Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), quoted in many Tuesday newspapers suggesting that the bomber was probably an individual and not a state-supported terrorist, said through an aide later that his remarks were not based on any special insight.

Wilson was surprised his quotations took on a tone of inside knowledge in news accounts, the aide said. “He was simply giving his opinion based on what he has heard and read in the papers,” said Otto Bos, special assistant to Wilson.

Experts on terrorism cautioned Tuesday that the possibility of well-trained terrorists should not be ruled out just because the bombing did not injure anyone and the heat-sensitive device that triggered the bomb appears crude and unsophisticated.

Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism specialist with the Rand Corp. in Santa Monica, said that no one claims responsibility in about 60% of terrorist attacks. No one has claimed responsibility for last week’s bombing, but he said it was not done for publicity.

“They obviously wanted to kill somebody,” he said.

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Richard Serrano and Patrick McDonnell in San Diego and Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington.