Terrorism Signs Went Unheeded, Sources Say

A week after foiling an alleged terrorist plot here, federal and local investigators are second-guessing a decision not to pursue evidence obtained in 1990 that extremists were gathering information on bomb design and collecting photographs of the World Trade Center, the Washington Monument and other landmarks, according to knowledgeable sources.

The critical documents, obtained in the inquiry into the murder of militant Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990, were in Arabic and were not translated or examined thoroughly for more than two years--until after a terrorist bomb ripped through the trade center last February, killing six people and injuring 1,000 others--according to the sources.

Once the material was examined, the FBI discovered clues that helped stop the alleged plot to destroy other New York landmarks and assassinate political figures, according to the sources.

However, the sources suggested that the material had offered authorities hard evidence of a terrorist conspiracy long before the bombing of the trade center and could have headed off the attack that stunned America.

“This material described major conspiracies and provided a road map to the bombing of the World Trade Center and the subsequent plot,” said a law enforcement official who has examined the documents and who spoke on the condition that his name be withheld.

Along with bomb designs and photographs of the trade center, the Empire State Building, St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Washington Monument, the sources said, the material contained links to some of the men arrested in connection with the trade center bombing and last week’s alleged plot.

A top official of the FBI disputed the characterization of the evidence obtained in the earlier inquiry, saying that it was too fragmented and inconclusive to constitute a warning.

“Based on my information, that is not accurate at all. That is Monday morning quarterbacking,” said Wayne Gilbert, assistant FBI director and head of counterterrorism and intelligence. “Maybe some names that came up in the earlier inquiry are now significant. It’s possible that there were things that were missed. But I’m not aware of any great group of documents that would have shed light on the World Trade Center or any other plot.”

Other FBI officials said there was no evidence pointing to a plan to blow up buildings and that the photographs of the potential targets appeared to be tourist snapshots. The information was gathered after Kahane was shot to death during a public appearance at a New York hotel in November, 1990.

Mike Cherkasky, who was chief of investigations for the New York district attorney’s office until last month and oversaw the Kahane inquiry, declined to discuss any evidence.

But he acknowledged that investigators overlooked connections between the killing and the later bombing of the World Trade Center and the subsequent alleged plot.

“We should have seen this coming out of the Kahane investigation,” said Cherkasky, who is now running for district attorney in nearby Westchester County. “But the joint terrorism task force (of New York police and the FBI) had been notoriously useless and America has a mind-set that this cannot happen here.”

Some information about the overlooked evidence was described earlier in Newsday. However, the connection to last week’s arrests and new details about targets make it clear that by late 1990 authorities had come upon traces of the cell of extremists accused of the trade center bombing and plans for a wave of assassinations and other attacks.

The chief suspect in the Kahane murder was El Sayyid A. Nosair, an Egyptian immigrant and follower of Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, a fiery Islamic cleric who recently had begun preaching at mosques in Brooklyn and Jersey City, N.J. Abdul Rahman is the spiritual leader of the Egyptian version of the militant Islamic Jihad and had been accused--but never convicted--of having ties to terrorist groups.

When authorities raided Nosair’s apartment in a New Jersey suburb, they discovered literature on bomb making, weapons and listening devices, according to a later court motion. They also discovered that Nosair attended the mosque in Brooklyn where Abdul Rahman preached.

The New York district attorney’s office handled the case as a murder but a joint task force of FBI agents and New York police detectives also investigated the possibility of a conspiracy. The district attorney’s office provided the task force with several boxes of documents but much of it was in Arabic.

Two sources involved in the case said that the material contained the names of some of Nosair’s associates and evidence of a wider conspiracy but it was not translated into English for more than two years.

Authorities said that Abdul Rahman was among those questioned about Nosair after the shooting but they found no evidence linking him to the slaying. When Nosair was indicted, authorities said that he had acted alone in the shooting of Kahane and the wounding of a postal worker and another as he fled the scene.

“We’ve got people who can put Nosair into the mosque but the bottom line is that we can’t connect anyone else to the Kahane shooting,” an FBI agent told reporters at the time.

Nosair ultimately was acquitted in the Kahane killing but was convicted on related charges and sentenced to prison.

Defense attorney William Kunstler, who represented Nosair in that 1991 trial, dismissed assertions Tuesday that documents seized from his former client indicated any plan to conduct terrorist attacks on American landmarks.

“Yes, they found pictures of the World Trade Center, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building but they were tourist snapshots. Those were nothing more than family pictures,” Kunstler said. “The proof of the pudding is they haven’t indicted him” in the World Trade Center bombing.

At the time of the Nosair inquiry in 1990 and 1991, the United States had not been the target of a major terrorist attack for several years. Some experts said they believe that the FBI may have overlooked the significance of the evidence out of complacency.

“The material that they failed to follow up was operational plans for a variety of bombs and it clearly stated the intentions to bomb targets in the United States, including the Washington Monument,” said Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of counterterrorism for the CIA who has discussed the material with federal law enforcement officials.

A law enforcement official confirmed Cannistraro’s description of the material and added more details. He said that district attorney’s investigators and the FBI viewed the matter as a murder investigation and showed little interest in pursuing a broader conspiracy.

But when a giant car bomb went off beneath the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, the notion that America was immune from a major terrorist attack was destroyed and the evidence amassed in the Nosair inquiry assumed far greater significance.

According to two sources, FBI agents and linguists began a careful examination of the material. They discovered the names of several associates of Nosair’s through the Islamic mosques and opened a broad investigation into the activities of Abdul Rahman.

Five of the seven suspects in the trade center blast had connections to Abdul Rahman and one of them had visited Nosair repeatedly while he was in prison.

A law enforcement source said that the material uncovered in the Nosair inquiry also played a role in the investigation that prevented the alleged bomb attacks on the United Nations and other locations.

Seven of the eight suspects arrested so far in the alleged conspiracy also had ties to Abdul Rahman. One of the alleged ringleaders also had visited Nosair in prison and authorities found a flyer about Nosair at the apartment of another suspect.

“The best and the brightest in New York and federal law enforcement looked at that material and they dropped the ball,” the law enforcement source said.

* PLOT ON JEWS CHARGED: New York bombing suspects allegedly discussed attacking Jews in diamond district. A25