Terrorism Chief Lost in Attack

After a career spent fighting terrorists, the FBI’s John P. O’Neill apparently died at their hands, a victim of the attacks on the World Trade Center towers.

O’Neill was chief of counter-terrorism operations for the FBI’s New York field office until two weeks ago, when he retired to become head of security for the World Trade Center.

O’Neill, 50, had made it out of the building Tuesday before rushing back in to help evacuate people.

“He was talking to someone on his cell phone at 10 a.m., said he was going back, and that’s the last anyone heard of him,” said James V. DeSarno Jr., a former top FBI official. “That was John, though.”

Lewis Schiliro, O’Neill’s former boss in New York, described him as the most dogged and knowledgeable counter-terror official in the bureau, who often warned of the United States’ increasing vulnerability to terrorists.

O’Neill spent 31 years with the FBI, rising from entry-level clerk to supervisor of the FBI’s global investigation into accused terrorist leader Osama bin Laden for his suspected role in the bombings of American embassies in Africa in 1998 and the U.S. warship Cole in Yemen two years later.

The investigation of Bin Laden led to his indictment by federal prosecutors for his role in the embassy bombings and his place on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List.

Bin Laden is widely suspected of orchestrating this week’s series of attacks.

“The horrible irony of this is painfully obvious to all of us in the FBI,” said Schiliro. “John was the best we had.”