Vermont Suspect Linked to Islamic Extremists

Concern about possible year-end terrorist attacks spread across the nation Thursday as federal authorities revealed an apparent link between a suspected terror group and a Canadian woman arrested on charges of trying to illegally smuggle an Algerian man into the United States.

Papers filed in U.S. District Court in Burlington, Vt., disclosed the first tangible evidence after days of speculation that an international terrorist organization might have ties to either of two Algerian suspects arrested with false passports at remote U.S. border posts in recent days.

U.S. prosecutors told the court that records showed the car and phone used by the Canadian woman, Lucia Garofalo, were registered to a member of the Algerian Islamic League, an extremist group that officials believe is involved in terror attacks in North Africa and Europe.

But the U.S. attorney in Vermont, Charles Tetzlaff, said “no evidence” yet connects the Vermont suspects to Ahmed Ressam, a 32-year-old Algerian arrested Dec. 14 in Port Angeles, Wash., after he tried to enter the country in a car containing ingredients for several bombs. Ressam has pleaded not guilty to charges that he illegally transported explosives and detonators across the border.

The investigation deepened in Montreal on Thursday as police raided the house of Ressam’s accomplice, Abdel Majid Dahoumane. They did not find any bomb-making materials there but charged both men with illegal possession of explosives and making a substance intending bodily harm or property damage. Police are still searching for Dahoumane, and they released details of his appearance and a picture on the police Web site (https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca) in a public appeal for help.

In other unsettling, if perhaps unrelated, developments:

* The FBI issued an unusual predawn warning urging Americans to be on the lookout during the holidays for “bombs in small parcels” that may arrive in the mail from Frankfurt, Germany. Airlines and the U.S. Postal Service immediately took precautions, officials said.

* Citing increased threats of terrorist attacks, the U.S. Department of Energy ordered extra security precautions at the nation’s nuclear weapon production and development facilities, as well as other DOE installations.

* FBI agents in New Jersey arrested a man alleged to have threatened in an Internet chat room to use a truck bomb to blow up tunnels leading into New York City. Although the FBI said the threat appeared to have been a hoax, bomb-sniffing dogs and extra police were assigned to guard the heavily used Lincoln and Holland tunnels.

The government earlier this week ordered tightened security at the nation’s airports and border crossings, adding to travel problems for millions of people at the start of a once-in-a-millennium holiday season. Travel agents said some passengers appear to have canceled or changed plans because of fear of a terrorist strike.

Parties Cut Back in Some Cities

Several cities, including Seattle and Las Vegas, have dramatically scaled back their estimates of the number of tourists expected to attend long-planned public New Year’s and millennium parties. Merchants in Las Vegas described a run on such disaster-related items as gas masks and bullet-proof vests.

While federal authorities still insist they have no credible evidence that either foreign or domestic terrorists have targeted a specific locale, they acknowledged they have received threats involving New York, Washington and Seattle.

“In those three cities, there has been at least some evidence, credible or unsubstantiated, that there have been threats,” said an FBI official who asked not to be identified.

“The last thing we want to do is create an environment where everyone is looking over their shoulder and living in fear,” the official added. “Everyone right now is in a heightened state of awareness, and it’s important for the public to be aware of the information brought to our attention, even if it’s uncorroborated.”

Los Angeles police have “no information about specific threats against any potential targets” in the area, said police Cmdr. David J. Kalish. But he said the Los Angeles Police Department will deploy triple the usual number of officers next Friday night, paying particular attention to “government buildings and public facilities.”

In Sacramento, Tom Mullins, spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis’ Office of Emergency Services, said, “We’re not discouraging anyone from going anywhere they want” to celebrate the new year. “I don’t think there has ever been more law enforcement on duty as there will be that weekend.”

U.S. officials appeared to downplay the overall danger, fearful that undue publicity not only could frighten the public but also could encourage copycat hoaxes and other disruptions. Officials again urged Americans to be more “vigilant” and to immediately report any unguarded or abandoned packages in public places.

President Clinton said the government is “on a heightened state of alert” because of the threat. “We know that at the millennium a lot of people who may even be a little crazy by our standards may have a political point to make [and] may try to take advantage of it,” Clinton told CNN.

Clinton said he plans to attend a heavily guarded outdoor celebration on the capital’s monument-lined Mall, and he urged Americans to enjoy other cities’ planned festivities. But USA Today reported that a poll found 50% of Americans plan to avoid public gatherings and crowds on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 because of potential terrorism. About 62% said they believed it likely or very likely that an attack would occur in the United States over the New Year’s holiday.

At Thursday’s detention hearing in Burlington, Vt., prosecutors said the car Garofalo was driving at the time of her arrest was co-registered to a man named Brahim Mahdi, who they said is active in the little-known Algerian Islamic League. Mahdi also opened the cell phone account for a phone found in Garofalo’s car, they said.

In a subsequent interview with Associated Press in Montreal, Mahdi denied any connection to terrorism and said he had never heard of the Algerian Islamic League. Mahdi said that Garofalo is a friend and that the car is registered in his name because she has bad credit.

Leader of Group Based in Switzerland

U.S. officials said the Algerian Islamic League is run by Mourad Dhina, 38, a physicist who attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later taught at Algeria’s Houari Boumedienne University. He later worked at CERN, the European nuclear physics laboratory in Geneva. Dhina was described as the hub of a network of Algerian Islamic militants based in Switzerland.

“Our information is that he is an Algerian international arms dealer residing in Switzerland and with connections to organizations sponsoring terrorist acts in Europe and Algeria,” Tetzlaff, the U.S. attorney for Vermont, said in a telephone interview.

Court papers said Dhina is believed to be connected to “organizations sponsoring a number of terrorist acts in Europe and Algeria” and “is reported to be actively involved in the shipment of arms to terrorist organizations.” Prosecutors attributed the assertions to U.S. intelligence sources whom they did not identify.

In 1994, Swiss newspapers reported that officials suspected Dhina of organizing an arms shipment from Slovakia to Islamic extremist forces in Algeria. He was not charged, however.

Dhina told AP in Geneva that he founded the league as a cultural organization but that it has not existed for five or six years. He said he doesn’t know either Garofalo or her Algerian companion, Bouabide Chamchi, and described the allegations as “completely surreal.”

U.S. Magistrate Jerome Niedermeier ordered Garofalo, 35, to return to court Thursday to determine whether she should be released on bail before trial. He ordered Chamchi, 20, her Algerian companion during the border crossing, held without bond.

In Washington, the FBI issued a statement at 4 a.m. Thursday warning Americans that it had received “unsubstantiated information that individuals may be planning to send bombs in small parcels to addresses in the United States” from Frankfurt, Germany.

The FBI warning prompted the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to use X-ray machines and other devices to check all parcels and first-class mail from Frankfurt, according to a spokesman. German police said all packages, not just those bound for the United States, would be screened in a pressurized chamber at Frankfurt airport.

The FBI also arrested Renato DeSousa Flor in Newark, N.J., after he allegedly warned in an e-mail to an America Online chat room that a blue truck packed with explosives would be left in either the Lincoln or Holland tunnel, linking New Jersey to Manhattan under the Hudson River.

“Whether these threats turn out to be significant or a hoax, we’ve got to take them seriously,” said an FBI official.

*

Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Edgar Sandoval and Matt Lait in Los Angeles, Mary Curtius in San Francisco, Tony Perry in San Diego, Dan Morain in Sacramento, John M. Glionna in Las Vegas, Lynn Marshall in Seattle, John J. Goldman in New York, and Geraldine Baum and Doyle McManus in Washington.

* SEATTLE SUSPECT SOUGHT

The man accused Dec. 14 of trying to smuggle bomb materials is wanted in France. A6