5 Bombs Seized in N.Y.; Subway Called Target

NEW YORK — Acting on a tip, heavily armed police raided a Brooklyn apartment Thursday and found five bombs that prosecutors charged were destined for a terrorist attack on New York’s subway system.

Police entering the apartment shot and wounded two suspects. The officers said they fired to prevent the suspects from detonating one of the devices. A third man, reportedly the informant in the case, also was taken away by police.

“It appears as if they succeeded in at least activating one switch,” Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said, describing the close call.

The FBI and the New York City Police Department issued a statement late Thursday that said the men were “planning to target U.S. and Jewish interests worldwide.”

A federal law enforcement official in Washington said that “given the makeup of the bomb” a suicide bombing is “a strong theory” in the investigation.

The mayor said at least one of the three men indicated said that he was pleased by the suicide bombings of a crowded Jerusalem marketplace on Wednesday in which 15 people were killed.

Giuliani said the man was “expressing support for what happened in Israel and was gratified that it occurred.”

The mayor, a former federal prosecutor, stressed, however, that no direct link had yet emerged between the apartment raid and the marketplace explosion for which the militant Islamic group Hamas has claimed responsibility.

Late Thursday, the two wounded defendants, Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer and Lafi Khalil were arraigned in absentia in federal court in Brooklyn as they recuperated at a Brooklyn hospital, where they were listed in stable condition after surgery.

In accompanying documents the government said that Abu Mezer told federal agents that the bombs were targeted for detonation on the subway. The papers added that an address book he possessed contained the name of a member of a known terrorist organization. Neither the member’s name nor the organization was disclosed.

The court papers also described the police raid, which was mounted after authorities received a tip late Wednesday night that the second-floor apartment in the Park Slope neighborhood was a bomb factory.

Police surrounded the site, secured several city blocks and quietly removed 90 residents of nearby buildings.

Then at 4:30 a.m. Thursday, an eight-man team entered the apartment.

“The apartment was completely dark with the exception of police flashlights,” the federal complaint said. “The police announced themselves and repeatedly ordered the defendants not to move. Both defendants disobeyed the orders and moved toward the officers.

“One defendant attempted to grab an officer’s weapon. The second defendant moved toward a black bag, which later was found to contain an explosive device,” the complaint added.

Subway service in the neighborhood was halted, inconveniencing 300,000 riders, as members of the bomb squad gingerly inspected the explosives, which were later taken by disposal truck to the police range at Rodnam’s Neck in the Bronx.

Before undergoing his operation, prosecutors said that Abu Mezer told agents how to safely disarm or detonate the bombs.

Police Commissioner Howard Safir said the bombs were capable of killing a person up to 25 feet away in a confined area and would cause injuries up to 100 feet away in an outside area.

Prosecutors said they found a Jordanian passport in Abu Mezer’s bag but were unsure whether it was legitimate. Also in the bag were Canadian and U.S. immigration documents and a completed application for asylum in the United States.

Court papers said the asylum application indicated the defendant was previously arrested in Israel and accused of being a member of a known terrorist organization.

Atty. Gen. Janet Reno said that the joint FBI/New York police terrorist task force was conducting the investigation, and White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry said President Clinton complimented the police for “fine law-enforcement work.”

James K. Kallstrom, deputy director of the FBI in charge of the bureau’s New York field office, said, “We’re finding our scope is global.”

Detectives and FBI agents were trying to determine whether the three men had links to Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, currently on trial in federal court in Manhattan on charges he acted as the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993 that killed six people and injured more than 1,000.

In a separate case last year, Yousef was convicted of plotting to blow up a dozen U.S. jetliners during 48 hours of unprecedented terror over the Pacific Ocean.

Members of the terrorist task force also were looking into the possibility the three suspects were followers of militant Egyptian Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who was found guilty of plotting a war of urban terrorism against the United States by planning to blow up two tunnels, the United Nations and the building housing the FBI’s field office in Manhattan.

The Washington Post reported that the Arabic-speaking man who alerted police to the alleged bombing plot was tentatively identified late Thursday as Mohamed Shindli, of Pakistan. Government officials said he approached two Long Island Rail Road police officers about 10:45 p.m. Wednesday. The officers, unable to understand Shindli, took him to the New York Police Department’s 88th Precinct station house, where detectives summoned the FBI translator.

After he described the bombs, the other men in the apartment and the layout of the residence, Shindli was allowed to return to the apartment, government officials said. He was asleep in an outer room when the NYPD emergency services team arrived. The two other men and the bombs were found in an inner room.

During the day Thursday, dozens of police and FBI agents combed through the building in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, a neighborhood of brownstones and small shops.

An FBI crime lab in a trailer was parked in front of the building, which also contained a car service.

Santiago Velazquez, one of the drivers for the car service, said there was heavy traffic in and out of the building, and many of the people arrived in yellow cabs and carried bags, boxes and suitcases with baggage tags indicating they had just come from the airport.

“For the past five years, that house has been a revolving door,” said Pasquale Failo, the building’s owner.

“People were coming and going all the time. I always took them with a grain of salt. They were always polite. I never saw any suspicious activities,” Failo said.

A man identified by the newspaper Newsday as the brother of Abu Mezer in the West Bank town of Hebron said he was shocked at the news of his brother’s arrest.

“I know my brother. Inside my mind, I am not believing this,” said Nour Abu Maizar, adding that American authorities had misspelled his brother’s name.

Gazi came of age during the Intifada, the Palestinian uprising that began in the late ‘80s and was weary of the place, Newsday reported. He wanted to go abroad and three years ago, Gazi’s brother helped him get a visa to Canada.

Once he left for Canada, Gazi’s movements get fuzzy. “He wanted to work and earn money for school,” his brother said. “He wanted to build a future. Ambition is the only goal he has.”

Times researchers Lisa Meyer and Lynette Ferdinand contributed to this story.