Massive Manhunt Seeks Bomb-Smuggling Accomplice

A possible accomplice of the Algerian charged with explosives smuggling continues to elude police in this country and Canada.

The Algerian, Ahmed Ressam, 32, was apprehended last week trying to bring nitroglycerin, homemade timing devices and other ingredients for bomb-making into the United States through Port Angeles from Victoria in a rental-car trunk.

Ressam reportedly had two ferry ticket stubs - suggesting a companion may have walked off the ferry Coho - when he was arrested.

Montreal police spokesman Andre Poirier said a massive manhunt was under way in Canada and the United States for the companion.

"He might be returning to Vancouver. He might be in Seattle. We don't know," Poirier said.

Ressam had booked a motel room near Seattle Center and the Space Needle, where thousands will celebrate on New Year's Eve.

"We plan to go on with the festival" with heightened security, center spokeswoman Kym Allen said today. "But we're assessing the environment" daily.

The second suspect

Witnesses in Vancouver said Ressam and an unidentified man had stayed for about three weeks at the 2400 Motel in that city.

Employees of the motel told reporters the two men paid cash and maintained a low profile, and that the floor of their room was often littered with plastic garbage bags.

The FBI would not confirm that a second man is being sought or otherwise comment on the case, Seattle spokeswoman Roberta Burroughs said.

Yesterday, police found a van belonging to Ressam and registered in the name of Benni Noris - one of two aliases he used - in the east end of Montreal, said Cpl. Leo Monbourquette, a spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

A police bomb squad from Ottawa was called in to inspect the orange GMC van, but officers said no explosives were found.

An earlier search of Ressam's Montreal apartment turned up no explosives, Canadian Press reported, although the RCMP would not say whether they found other evidence.

Customs officers honored

Authorities said Ressam had been carrying a phony Canadian passport and two fake driver's licenses, with false names but his photo, when he was arrested.

He was expected to be indicted in U.S. District Court here Wednesday. Already, he has been charged here with transporting explosives into the United States, providing false identification and lying to U.S. Customs officials.

The Customs inspectors at Port Angeles who helped arrest Ressam were commended and called heroes today by U.S. Customs Commissioner Raymond Kelly. Inspectors Diana M. Dean, Mark Johnson and former Kitsap County prosecutor C. Dan Clem flew to Washington, D.C., to receive the Exceptional Service Award this morning. A fourth inspector, Mike Chapman, is on vacation and did not attend the ceremony.

"Their vigilance has potentially saved many lives," Kelly said. "Unquestionably these inspectors are heroes."

Fears for New Year

Ressam's arrest sparked fears of a major terrorist attack in connection with holiday celebrations. Security at all 301 ports of entry into the U.S. has been tightened. Yesterday there were hours-long backups at Blaine for cars trying to cross into Washington state.

President Clinton's national security adviser urged Americans to be vigilant against potential terrorist attacks at home and abroad over the holidays.

Sandy Berger, head of the National Security Council, said authorities were seeking to determine whether Ressam was part of a terrorist network.

"We're not aware of any other specific threat against particular targets in the United States," Berger said yesterday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "Obviously, if that changes we'll alert the American people."

Just the courier?

Ressam had booked a room, under a false name, for Tuesday night at the Best Western Loyal Inn in downtown Seattle, five blocks from Seattle Center. He had American Airlines tickets to fly Wednesday from Seattle to New York and then on British Airways to London. There also were road maps for Washington, Oregon and California in his rental car.

Sources said they suspect Ressam was a courier, or "mule," delivering bomb components to others who might assemble them.

Although several news organizations have reported Ressam is tied to the Montreal cell of the Algerian radical Armed Islamic Group, a Montreal police spokesman said yesterday that the link was a rumor not yet confirmed.

But investigators are exploring a possible connection between Ressam and Karim Said Atmani, who was extradited from Canada to France after the 1996 Paris subway bombing that killed four people and injured 86. The bombing was attributed to Armed Islamic Group.

Terrorism theft ring

Newsweek and Reuters said Ressam roomed for a time in Montreal with Atmani.

Poirier, the Montreal police spokesman, said there may be strong reason to believe Ressam and Atmani are connected. Atmani was believed to be the head of a ring in Montreal that stole laptop computers and cellular phones from cars in order to raise money for extremists.

Last week, police arrested 11 alleged members of that ring, eight of them Algerian nationals.

In 1998, Ressam was jailed for a few weeks in Montreal for the same type of thefts from cars, though "when we arrested Mr. Ressam last year . . . we weren't looking at that time to associate him with terrorism," Poirier said.

Ressam apparently lived in Canada about three years and at one time drove a taxi.

Police say he went into hiding after his application for refugee status was rejected, in part because of his alleged connection with the Armed Islamic Group.

A similarity to bin Laden's bombs

Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of counter-terrorist operations at the CIA, has said the bomb-making ingredients and detonating devices in Ressam's rental car were similar to the ones used by associates of Afghan-based Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, a billionaire Saudi dissident who was indicted last August in the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Intelligence reports have said bin Laden uses his fortune to finance terrorist attacks as part of a personal campaign against the U.S. He has admitted funding Muslim combatants in Somalia, the Balkans and Chechnya, U.S. officials have said, and has created an umbrella group from a host of disparate Islamic forces - among them Algerians.

Porous border

Even as security was tightened yesterday, the Border Patrol admits that guarding the vast U.S.-Canadian border is next to impossible. Wide stretches are unprotected and, because of budget restraints and trouble hiring border guards, no border patrol agents work the night shift.

"It is very easy to simply jump or drive across the small ditch which separates the two countries," Eugene Davis, deputy chief Border Patrol agent, told a congressional hearing earlier this year.

To help beef up enforcement the Immigration and Naturalization Service next year plans to install a $4.8 million, 28-camera surveillance system at the border near Blaine. But the problems hiring border agents haunt the agency. Last year the INS was ordered to hire 1,000 new agents, but was able to fill fewer than 400 of the openings.

"This case is the best wake-up call that either Canada or the U.S. is going to get about our porous shared border," said U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee.