N.Y. Bomb Probe Considers Conspiracy : Explosion: Agents show pictures of persons of Middle East origin to acquaintances of the man charged in the case. Crane begins to remove rubble.

Federal agents, seeking to determine whether the World Trade Center bombing was the result of an international conspiracy, showed photographs of potential suspects Monday to neighbors and acquaintances of Mohammed A. Salameh, the only person charged so far in the explosion.

At the same time, investigators seized an automobile owned by Salameh and scoured it for traces of bomb-making chemicals, fingerprints or other clues. The four-door 1978 Chevy Nova was discovered in a body shop in Woodbridge, N.J. It reportedly had been badly damaged in a traffic accident several weeks before the blast.

Sources said the pictures of suspects of Middle Eastern origin being shown in New Jersey and elsewhere included some U.S. citizens with possible links to Mideast terrorist organizations. They were not identified. One photograph displayed by FBI agents was of a group of about eight people.

“We hope residents will be able to tell us if any of these people have been seen in the neighborhood,” a federal agent said.

“It’s very elusive,” the agent added when asked about the dimensions of any bombing conspiracy. “We suspect a conspiracy . . . but we don’t know the size. We don’t know how many there were. We don’t know whether they were allied with a foreign power or what their motive was.”

As the broad inquiry went on, a heavy crane was brought in to remove an estimated 2,500 tons of rubble from the devastated garage of the trade center. Explosive experts were trying to match residue from the blast with highly volatile bomb-making chemicals recovered from a storage shed Salameh rented in Jersey City.

A federal judge has kept sealed the results of all police and FBI searches after the bombing as well as chemical analysis of materials obtained. Once all searches are completed, the court papers may be unsealed, authorities said.

FBI agents visited Pedro Texidore, the superintendent of a building on Virginia Avenue in Jersey City where Salameh, a 25-year-old Palestinian whose family fled the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, lived in an apartment for about two weeks in January.

Texidore said the agents showed him pictures of about 12 men to identify. He recognized a person in one of the photos who he believed to be Salameh. The superintendent said the agents also searched the building’s basement and roof and took fingerprint samples.

“They left a mess in that apartment,” he said. “They fingerprinted with black stuff all over the door in the hallway.”

Investigators said people who may have seen Salameh were shown a series of photos--like a police lineup--which contained some figures unrelated to the case.

Vicky Salonga, the owner of Vicky’s Cafe near the Virginia Avenue apartment, said she also was visited by FBI agents displaying pictures. She said a man who looked like Salameh entered her restaurant with one or two men several times on weekend mornings to drink coffee and have long conversations in English which touched on religious topics.

“The FBI . . . came in and showed me a picture of a guy, and it looks like the guy (Salameh) who came in here,” Salonga said. Records showed that Salameh received a parking ticket at a loading zone just up the block from the Al Salam Mosque in Jersey City where he practiced the Islamic faith. The description on the ticket, dated Jan. 20, matches the car the FBI impounded Monday.

The auto’s registration carries the address of the Islamic Center of New Jersey, where a spokesman denied any connection with Salameh.

When Salameh rented the van believed to have been used in the Trade Center explosion--which killed five people and injured more than 1,000 on Feb. 26--he also listed the Islamic Center as an address.

“This is a public building. Anybody could use this address,” said Abdul Luh Mamaed, who said he had known Salameh “for a long time.”

“I don’t believe he made it (the bomb),” Mamaed said. “He’s very quiet. He never had any problems.” Mamaed declined to discuss Salameh further.

The Al Salam mosque has been of interest to federal agents for several years. El Sayyid A. Nosair, who was arrested in 1990 in connection with the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the founder of the militant Jewish Defense League, also attended the mosque, where Islamic cleric Omar Abdul Rahman has been a frequent speaker advocating violent Muslim fundamentalism. Immigration authorities are trying to deport the cleric.

Nosair, who was acquitted of slaying Kahane but convicted on other charges in the case, is serving a 22-year sentence at Attica State Prison. FBI agents seized documents from his cell over the weekend, the Buffalo News reported. Among the items the agents were looking for was correspondence between Nosair and Salameh.

Times Staff Writers Robert L. Jackson, Elizabeth Shogren and William C. Rempel contributed to this story.