
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, June 25, 1993                   TAG: 9306250215
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Boston Globe
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Medium

FBI SAYS TERRORIST PLOT FOILED 8 ARRESTED; U.N. ON LIST OF TARGETS

In what federal authorities describe as the largest terrorist roundup on U.S. soil, eight men were arrested before dawn Thursday and charged with plotting to bomb four landmark sites around Manhattan.

The suspects were identified as five nationalized U.S. citizens of Sudanese origin and three men of unknown backgrounds. They were seized after an undercover agent who had tracked them since May 7 told the FBI an attack was imminent.

"We felt a strong sense of urgency," said James Fox, the FBI field director in New York. "They were actually mixing the witch's brew" of explosives "when our agents broke in on them."

The case follows the bombing of the World Trade Center by four months and carries chilling parallels: According to the FBI, the group's ringleader said his motive was to retaliate for the Trade Center arrests; all eight are Muslims who worshipped at a New Jersey mosque frequented by the major Trade Center suspects; and the eight suspects were reportedly concocting a volatile potion similar to the one that killed six and terrorized the city on Feb. 26.

The men were not formally charged with planning assassinations, but two New York politicians, Sen. Alphonse D'Amato, R-N.Y., and state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, said the FBI told them they had been targets. Officials would not confirm early news reports that the U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak also were on the suspects' hit list.

Fox said the eight suspects planned to bomb the United Nations building; the FBI headquarters in lower Manhattan; and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, which connect New York and New Jersey.

The FBI said most of the suspects were arrested at a "bomb factory" set up in a house in Queens and kept under constant electronic surveillance since early May. The other men were apprehended in Brooklyn and in Yonkers, N.Y.

The eight suspects pleaded not guilty at an arraignment in U.S. Federal District Court and were held without bail.

At a news conference a few hours earlier, federal and local officials described a surveillance operation in which the major suspects were tailed, filmed and recorded as they cased their targets, shopped for explosives and plotted to kill security guards.

Fox said the agency moved in once the suspects "started to acquire materials like those used in the Trade Center explosion," including fertilizer, oil, gasoline and 55-gallon fuel drums. He also said the principal suspects had started gathering documents that might have allowed them to flee the country.

by CNB