Terror attack at LA airport?
2002-07-05 07:18
Los Angeles - The man who opened fire at an El Al ticket desk at Los Angeles airport on Thursday, killing two people before being overpowered and shot to death, was a 41-year-old Egyptian native, CNN reported, citing FBI sources.
The man, armed with two guns and a knife, was identified by CNN as Hesham Mohamed Hadayet. The man, believed to have been living in the United States since 1992, was not a US citizen, CNN reported. The report could not be immediately confirmed.
The shooting at the counter of the Israeli airline at the world's third busiest airport sent screaming passengers diving to the floor, heightening anxiety across the United States where unprecedented security made Americans jittery on its first Independence Day anniversary since the September 11 attacks.
About eight hours after the shooting, bomb squad officers closed in on a car in an airport parking lot which police said was the suspect's vehicle. FBI agents later raided an apartment complex in the southern California city of Irvine, about 80 kilometres south of the airport, an Irvine police officer on the scene told reporters.
The FBI said there was no indication of a terrorist connection in the mid-morning airport shooting and declined to discuss the shooter's motive.
One eyewitness said the gunman, who appeared calm, seemed to deliberately target Israelis when he opened fire in an area where passengers were waiting to check in for El Al flight 106, which was headed for Tel Aviv, via Toronto. Five people were injured.
FBI agent Ron Iden told a news conference the 52 year-old assailant was carrying .45 calibre and 9mm handguns and a knife but was not carrying any identification and had apparently not spoken before opening fire.
Iden said the gunman was "confronted and subdued" by two El Al security guards and a private citizen.
Israeli officials said the shooting had the hallmarks of a terrorist attack and said it evoked memories of bloody 1985 attacks by Palestinian extremists near El Al counters at airports in Rome and Vienna.
"It seems like terrorism. It looks like terrorism," Israel's consul general in Los Angeles, Yuval Rotem, told a news conference.
"The way it was conducted was very much similar to previous attacks at El Al counters throughout European countries. And therefore given this history we presume that it may be, and would appear to be, a terrorist attack."
Isolated incident?
Police and FBI officials said they believed the attack was an "isolated incident" and added that they were investigating reports that the shooting may have been sparked by a dispute moments earlier over identity documents.
Asked to comment on one report that the assailant was an Arab male, FBI agent Rich Garcia told reporters: "A lot of time people can be passed as Arab males who turn out to be Hispanic. It's hard to say just by appearances, so we cannot go on that visual aspect alone.
"We are still trying to make a determination on the identity, the true identity, of the suspect. That is going to take time," Garcia said.
One eyewitness, Hakim Hafidh described the gunman as "very, very calm" as he shot a woman behind the El Al ticket counter. Hafidh described the shooter as bespectacled, clean-shaven and not carrying any luggage.
Frenchman Herbe Fleuriot (26) who witnessed the shooting, said the gunman appeared to be aiming "directly at Israelis or the people of El Al."
"It was like all these ants running everywhere. People were screaming, hollering 'get out of there.' People were ducking and running, going 'oh my God'. Someone said 'They're Arabs, they're Arabs," witness Steven Haney told reporters.
Shots mistaken for fireworks
One of the dead was identified as Yakov Aminov, a 46-year-old year old Jew living in Los Angeles whose wife was expecting their sixth child. Relatives said Aminov had been at the airport dropping off friends. The other victim was a woman in her 20s described by El Al officials as a local ground staffer .
One man - thought to be the El Al security guard - was treated for knife wounds. An elderly woman was shot in the ankle, a man was treated for injuries sustained when he was pistol whipped and two people suffered heart trouble.
Some initially mistook the shots for fireworks.
"I heard some shots. I thought it was some kids' fireworks, whatever. But after three or four shots, I just hit the floor," said airport restaurant manager Armando Diaz.
Extra police, many with sniffer dogs, had been drafted into the airport for what was expected to be one of the heaviest travel weekends of the year with almost one million passengers passing through.
Twenty international flights were delayed after the shooting and 10 000 people had their journeys interrupted. Airport officials said flights were expected to be back to normal by midnight.
Airport security around the nation has been tightened since September 11 with particular emphasis on Los Angeles because was listed as a target in a failed plot by Algerian extremists to bomb buildings over the millennium. Most of the enhancements have been in passenger and baggage screening.
El Al has some of the toughest security precautions of any airline, developed in response to a series of attacks by Arab and Islamic militants on its operations during the 1960s and early 1970s.