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Arrest Shows New Teamwork for CIA, FBI

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

It was just before dawn on Sunday morning when five members of the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team rushed into a hotel somewhere along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and finally came face-to-face with one of the world’s most wanted men: Mir Aimal Kansi.

Awakened by a knock on his door, Kansi--the suspected gunman in a brutal 1993 shooting spree outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., that left two dead--opened the door and gave up without resistance. And his arrest brought to a conclusion a secret joint operation that ultimately involved the CIA, FBI, State Department, Afghan informants and, according to sources, the Pakistani government.

Details of Kansi’s capture and return to the United States on Tuesday night to face murder charges were revealed Wednesday by jubilant FBI and CIA officials. The successful operation clearly boosted sagging morale at the CIA--buffeted in recent years by various spy scandals--while ending a frustrating four-year search for the man suspected of bringing terror to the agency’s front door.

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Kansi, 33, appeared briefly in court Wednesday morning; Fairfax, Va., Circuit Judge J. Howe Brown ordered him held without bail while awaiting trial on two counts of murder, three counts of maiming and five counts of using a firearm in the commission of a crime. Bearded and wearing green prison overalls, Kansi told Brown he cannot afford a lawyer.

Brown ordered him held without bail, asked the state to determine whether Kansi should be given a public defender and scheduled a June 27 arraignment.

Prosecutor Robert F. Horan Jr. said he would ask for the death penalty.

Government officials, who once speculated that Kansi was part of a broader international terrorist conspiracy, now say they believe he acted alone in the CIA shootings.

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Sources have said Kansi became mentally unstable following the death of a close family member before the attack. His former roommate, meanwhile, told authorities soon after the shootings that Kansi had been angered by America’s refusal to do more to help the Muslims in Bosnia. But officials declined on Wednesday to speculate about Kansi’s motives.

FBI and CIA officials were still reluctant Wednesday to provide a full account of Kansi’s arrest, apparently because Pakistan does not want to publicly acknowledge its cooperation with the United States for fear of reprisals from radical Muslim groups. But the officials stressed that the joint operation was an example of new cooperation between the CIA and FBI--and of the degree to which the agencies have put their traditional turf battles behind them.

In fact, the FBI agent who led the team that arrested Kansi was treated to a hero’s welcome at CIA headquarters Wednesday morning, receiving a standing ovation from CIA employees gathered in the agency’s auditorium.

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“It was probably the first time that an FBI agent has ever received a standing ovation at the CIA,” quipped one senior CIA official.

President Clinton, who personally approved the FBI-CIA operation, was “delighted” by the outcome, White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said Wednesday.

In the Jan. 25, 1993, shootings, Kansi allegedly mowed down motorists trapped in morning rush-hour traffic, targeting people in cars lined up to enter the CIA headquarters complex. Both of those killed were CIA officers, as were two of the three people wounded.

The FBI and CIA have tried several times to find and capture Kansi, but he had been able to elude them in his native Pakistan, and more recently in the rugged and remote reaches of Afghanistan. Officials said Wednesday that Kansi never traveled widely once he returned to his native region after the shooting, and in the last two years he had spent most of his time in Afghanistan.

Apprehending Kansi remained one of the intelligence community’s top priorities, and the FBI and CIA repeatedly planned covert operations designed to nab him, officials said. One plan called for a U.S. aircraft to fly out of Oman in the Persian Gulf and land a team to pick up Kansi after he was delivered to a prearranged location by Afghans cooperating with the CIA.

Each plan ended in frustration. “We had several windows of opportunity, but the windows never stayed open long enough,” noted a CIA official.

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But government agents kept working the case, while the State Department announced a $2-million reward for Kansi’s capture. Pakistani intelligence agents have also apparently cooperated in the hunt in recent years.

Officials said that during the flight, Kansi acknowledged his identity, admitting he is the man on an FBI wanted poster. The officials said he engaged in conversation with FBI agents, but they declined to say whether he had confessed to the shootings.

A senior CIA official said Wednesday the agency does not believe Kansi was ever connected to the CIA’s covert war in Afghanistan in the 1980s. There had been speculation that he might have harbored some old grudges against the CIA, since the agency shipped arms to the Afghan rebels fighting the Soviet Union through the remote Pakistani province where Kansi grew up.

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