Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 21, 1995 TAG: 9504210117
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: OKLAHOMA CITY LENGTH: Medium
The death toll rose to 52. About 150 people remained unaccounted for.
In London, a third man, a Jordanian-American described by U.S. officials as a possible witness in the attack, was put on a plane back to the United States for questioning. Italian officials said his bags, seized in Rome, contained possible bomb-making tools. Law enforcement sources in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they did not think he had significant knowledge of the bombing, however.
FBI Agent Weldon Kennedy said warrants have been issued for two white men suspected of using aliases to rent the truck used in the bombing Wednesday morning. Their identities were not known, he said.
Investigators said they think the truck was rented in Kansas on Monday, packed with fuel-and-fertilizer explosives and parked outside the office building, where the blast tore away half the structure and blew a crater 8 feet deep and 30 feet across.
An axle thought to have come from the truck was found about two blocks away, said a police source who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In Washington, Attorney General Janet Reno announced a $2 million reward for information leading to arrests in the case.
ABC quoted sources as saying the FBI got its first big break from a surveillance camera near the federal building. Using photo-enhancement techniques, agents were able to see part of the truck moments before the blast and identified it as a Ryder rental truck.
CNN reported that three men arrested on immigration charges were being questioned in the bombing. They had stopped to ask an Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer for directions Wednesday, and the officer noted their car's license plate number - which turned out to belong to a rental car instead of the vehicle they were driving, the network said. An official at the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Washington denied INS had anyone in custody.
A law enforcement source in New York told The Associated Press that one of the men named by CNN, Asad R. Siddiqy, a cab driver from Queens, arrived in Oklahoma City about an hour before the blast and is considered a suspect.
The FBI, federal firearms agents and Dallas police were seen Wednesday night taking boxes from the apartment building where a man who identified himself only as Siddiqy's brother said Siddiqy had been staying.
The man, speaking to reporters Thursday through his closed apartment door, said he had been questioned for 16 hours and that his brother was still being held. He denied that he or his brother had anything to do with the bombing or any terroristic activity.
More than 400 people were injured in a blast that killed at least 12 children. No one knows how many people were in the building when the bomb went off at 9:04 a.m., but officials expect to find more bodies. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., estimated there were 810 people - 560 employees and 250 nonemployees.
More than 700 people have called special telephone numbers to notify authorities that they were safe.
Before Wednesday, the deadliest U.S. bombing had been in 1927, when a man fearful he couldn't pay his property taxes lined a school near Lansing, Mich., with dynamite and blew it up, killing 45 people, 38 of them children.
In Washington, President Clinton announced he has ordered new steps to protect thousands of federal buildings nationwide.
About 200 FBI agents and more than 100 other investigators have joined state and local law enforcement officials on the case.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB