Officials Warn Postal Bomber May Head West

Postal authorities, bracing for the prospect of more pipe bombings, warned its managers in Midwest and Western states Sunday that whoever left more than a dozen explosives in mailboxes in Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska last week could be heading their way.

Authorities now believe that the bombs left in rural mailboxes in the three states are all the work of the same person.

The FBI is trying to determine why none of the six pipe bombs found in Nebraska mailboxes Saturday exploded, even after several were handled by unwitting residents. One theory, investigators said, is that unlike the bombs found in Iowa and Illinois on Friday, the Nebraska explosives were not designed to go off on contact. Six people were injured in Friday’s incidents.

One more pipe bomb was found in a Nebraska mailbox Sunday night--in Albion. It didn’t explode and police had not determined whether it was linked to other incidents.

Authorities believe that it is very possible, if not likely, that the pipe-bomber will strike again.

“We’re working as quickly as we can to determine what kind of pattern we’re seeing, and the historical profiles are telling us that it’s unlikely this individual is going to suddenly stop” leaving pipe bombs, said Richard Watkins, a postal official in Des Moines.

Postal officials held a teleconference Sunday afternoon with top district managers from the Midwest and Mountain states, including Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Kansas and Missouri, to alert them to the possibility that the pipe bomber could be heading their way, Watkins said.

“Or he may make a circle and head back” toward the East, Watkins said. “We don’t know. That’s the danger in trying to get too far ahead of ourselves. We have to take what we know and head from there.”

Postal officials plan to resume mail delivery today in the affected areas of Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska, with carriers urged to take extra safeguards.

The pipe bombs left in Iowa and Illinois included copies of a note angrily railing against vague government abuses and saying that the explosives were “attention getters” to force change. Authorities believe that most or all of the six Nebraska bombs also included notes, but several were destroyed when authorities detonated the devices.

Terri Teuber, a spokeswoman for the Nebraska State Patrol, said that “we have every reason to believe that these incidents were connected to those in the other states. The devices are similar and there were notes that were similar.”

Investigators would not characterize the contents of the notes found Saturday.

The Nebraska explosives all came in Ziploc-type plastic bags, said FBI agent Peter Sakaris in Omaha. Like the explosives found in Iowa and Illinois, the bombs were made of metal pipe about 6 inches long and were battery-powered, officials said.

Sakaris said investigators were anxious to determine why none of the Nebraska bombs exploded, even after several residents handled them. According to neighbors, one homeowner threw one device into a ditch after noticing that it looked suspicious.

“You would think that [handling] would activate it, but it’s hard to speculate on why it didn’t,” he said.

One possibility is that whoever left the second batch of bombs intended only to scare people--and “grab” more attention--rather than inflict more damage. But officials at the FBI, which is investigating the bombings as acts of “domestic terrorism,” cautioned that it was too early to draw any conclusions about who is responsible or what the motive might be.

“We’re still investigating the case. There are no breakthroughs,” Sakaris said.

Postal officials have inspected thousands of rural boxes in the areas where the bombs were found, and Watkins said inspectors also have begun searching Postal Service files for any threatening anti-government letters sent to the post office that might produce leads.

Monday is the busiest mail day of the week, and postal officials were working Sunday to come up with stepped-up safety precautions for letter carriers, he said.

In Iowa, postal officials announced new guidelines Sunday, saying letter carriers will only make deliveries to rural roadside mailboxes that are left open. Customers are asked to tape or tie open the lids of the boxes so carriers can determine they are safe.

For rural carriers in Iowa and Illinois, where routes were suspended Friday for about 400,000 addresses, “obviously there’s going to be a great deal of anxiety, one would have to assume, but they want to get back out to work,” Watkins said.

“We’re obviously concerned with the safety of our employees, and we want to determine what’s the safest way to get the mail delivered,” he said.