Posted on 07/06/2002 4:45:59 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
A gunman who killed two people before he was shot dead by El Al security staff at Los Angeles International Airport has been identified unofficially as an Egyptian who had been resident in the United States for 10 years. US authorities were at odds with the Israeli Government, which owns El Al, over a motive for the attack on Thursday. The FBI said it was an isolated incident and it was not seeking other suspects. CNN quoted an unnamed White House source as saying, "There is no other intelligence that would speak [of terrorism] ... we don't have anything to suggest this is anything other than a criminal act." The Israelis insisted it had to be terrorism because it was their airline and the shooting happened on July 4. On Thursday night, FBI sources informally identified the lone gunman as Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, 41. Whatever the motive, the shooting was a breach of intense new security and an embarrassment for US authorities still coming to terms with a catalogue of security failures revealed in the aftermath of September 11. It was all the more embarrassing because security has been redoubled this week to meet feared new attacks at a time when America is awash with Independence Day fervour Hundreds of Australians were caught in a security lock-down at the airport, during which thousands of passengers were evacuated from the terminal and dozens of departures were delayed from the third-biggest airport in the world. The two who died were a woman in her twenties who worked for a local company that provides ground services to El Al, and Yakov Aminov, 46, a Los Angeles diamond dealer with eight children and a ninth on the way, who was farewelling a friend on El Al flight 106 to Tel Aviv via Toronto. When the shooting started, about 10 passengers were near the El Al desk - about 100 metres from a security post. One passenger, Thad Weimlein, though it was fireworks, a prank. He said: "There were probably eight or 10 shots, people were running and screaming, hitting the floor." A spokesman for Mexicana Airlines, which had a ticketing counter adjacent to El Al, said one of his supervisors had overheard the gunman having a heated argument at the El Al counter, apparently to do with his documentation. Police sources also said the gunman might have borne a grudge, possibly connected with his employment. But David Parkus, a Texas doctor who was waiting at the nearby Singapore Airlines desk, said the gunman had walked purposefully towards the El Al desk and had started shooting from about five metres away. He said the man had fired about five shots in rapid succession when one of two El Al security men, a blond man in his twenties, grabbed the gunman's wrist and began to fight him to the ground. A second security man, later identified as Haim Sapil, then rushed from behind the counter and shot the gunman, who continued to struggle. As the gunman fell to the ground, a 15-centimetre hunting knife fell from his jacket. A few passengers, including Dr Parkus, rushed to help. "I held his legs for maybe a minute and I could feel his strength go out of him - I guess he was dying," he told The New York Times. Mr Sapil, the security man who shot the gunman, was later treated at hospital for minor knife wounds. Israel's Transport Minister, Ephraim Sneh, said: "When a gunman opens fire on El Al passengers at an international airport, you have to assume it is terrorism." But the FBI officer leading the case, Richard Garcia, said: "We are not looking for any other suspects. As of this moment, we are not aware of anything else that might be related to this." This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/05/1025667059661.html
A spokesman for Mexicana Airlines, which had a ticketing counter adjacent to El Al, said one of his supervisors had overheard the gunman having a heated argument at the El Al counter, apparently to do with his documentation. Police sources also said the gunman might have borne a grudge, possibly connected with his employment.
July 6, 2002 -- The man who attacked an El Al ticket counter and killed two people Thursday was a closed-mouthed Egyptian immigrant, born on the Fourth of July, who left a string of contradictory clues to his motive.
FBI officials said they were pursuing numerous leads yesterday but were far from determining what triggered Hesham Mohamed Hedayet's rampage at Los Angeles International Airport.
"It appears he went there with the intention of killing," FBI agent Richard Garcia said. "Why he did that is what we are still trying to determine."
Garcia acknowledged that Israeli officials are labeling Hedayet a "terrorist" - because they regard such attacks as terrorism unless proven otherwise.
But he said it was too early in the probe for the FBI to agree.
"We don't make presumptions like that," he said. Several clues to Hedayet's thinking emerged yesterday:
* Neighbors recalled Hedayet as a religious Muslim - and a private man who rarely said more than hello.
"He never uttered a complete sentence," said neighbor Dan Danilewicz.
But in recent days Hedayet seemed distraught.
"He usually walked upright, but the last time I saw him his shoulders were slumped and he appeared to be either very worried or very sick," said Hazael Sanchez, who lives across the street.
* Neighbors said Hedayet, 41, became angry when a resident of their Irvine, Calif., apartment complex hung an American flag over his balcony after Sept. 11. But other neighbors recalled that Hedayet put a small American flag of his own on the door of his own two-bedroom apartment after 9/11.
* Hedayet's wife, Hela, and sons, Omar, 14, and Adam, 6, left last week to spend the summer in Egypt, neighbors and investigators said.
Hela didn't want to go, but her husband insisted on it, said a neighbor, Anthony Martinez.
Garcia said investigators were examining whether marital strife was a factor in Hedayet's actions.
Police had been called to the Hedayet home at least three times in the past but the nature of the problems was not immediately clear.
Investigators seized Hedayet's home computer yesterday but indicated it would take days before they would draw any conclusions about his rampage.
An Israeli official said Irvine, a Los Angeles suburb, had become a "problematic" center of anti-Israel rhetoric recently.
But Garcia said Hedayet's name is not on any international or domestic "watch list" and there is no clear indication that he held anti-Israel views.
Neighbors said Hedayet's family was always well-dressed and indicated they had considerable wealth.
But Hedayet ran a limousine service, Five Star Limo, out of his small apartment.
Earlier this summer, a 16-year-old Jewish neighbor, Kobi Metzler, hired Hedayet to drive her to her school prom - and at a "very low price."
"She came home and said, ‘Dad, this guy is so cool,' " her father recalled.
The FBI said Hedayet had murder in his heart when he drove 43 miles to the airport with a Glock .45 semi-automatic pistol, a Glock 9 mm pistol and a knife and approached the El Al ticket counter before noon L.A. time Thursday.
Both Israeli and FBI officials denied reports that Hedayet said anything before he opened fire.
An El Al security guard who was to accompany passengers on a flight to Tel Aviv via Toronto jumped Hedayet and was stabbed by him.
A second guard, Haim Sapir, joined in the struggle. Hedayet continued to fire the gun in one hand and stab Sapir with the other, Israeli sources said.
But the two guards forced Hedayet to the ground and Sapir fatally shot him.With Post Wires
A 41-year old man who can get two guns doesn't need the same sort of handholding terrorist infrastructure as a 18-year old lovelorn schoolgirl.
The reasons matter not because of whether or not it is terrorism (I'm fearful of random nuts out to kill me), but because the appropriate measures to fight it are different. Organized terror can be fought, at least in the short term, by Israeli-style measures: find and punish the leadership, rip up the infrastructure. Terror from the brainwashed is different--you have to keep them out of the country. This guy is in because his wife won the INS lottery, for chrissakes. Immigration, guest status, and citizenship are all privileges that should not be granted blindly in the name of diversity.
If you throw too much too fast into the melting pot, it slops over the sides before it melts.
BS!
The security worked perfectly as it was set up. He had all of 5 seconds to kill. How is that a "breach" of security? There was no security to get into the area in the first place.
Now, if this had happened at the American Airlines counter, the guy would still be reloading and shooting and the "security" would be still be checking grandmothers for knitting needles.
The right guys had the guns and were at the right place. Much the same could be said if we were now arming pilots instead of planning on the "security" of a locked cockpit door. You can't be everyplace, so you have to make defense in depth and prioritize your limited security assets. The Israelis did and were successful at averting a massacre.
Sad but not surprising our FBI takes this response. They aren't looking and aren't very aware.
"... At present, Mr. Garcia said, officials are exploring three possible motives. The first is that it may have been a hate crime, although investigators said they had yet to find evidence that Mr. Hadayet held any animus toward Israelis.
But a former driver for Mr. Hadayet, Abdul Zahab, 36, said in an interview this afternoon that he often heard his boss express virulent anti-Israeli sentiments.
"He had hate for Israel, for sure," said Mr. Zahab, who was born in Syria and worked a month for Mr. Hadayet about two years ago. "He told me that the Israelis tried to destroy the Egyptian nation and the Egyptian population by sending prostitutes with AIDS to Egypt. He said that the two biggest drug dealers in New York are Israeli." ..."
Hmm, let's see . . . .the Koran maybe? Duh.
Two innocent people were killed by him and they still don't have the 'evidence'?
The politicians need to take a poll I guess!
I've come to the conclusion that the US Gov, including George W Bush is NOT serious about terror attacks in the US. He hasn't fired Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, who stands in the way of pilots, airline workers and passengers arming themselves. They've just put out a new warning about terrorists using a small plane to carry out an attack. Why aren't general aviation pilots and workers at small airports encouraged to arm themselves?
How about fuel trucks? Why aren't truck drivers encouraged to arm themselves? Where's the training for Americans to fight the terrorists? Why the total and nonsensical reliance on governmental employees, specifically law enforcement? They can't be everywhere. Hell, even at the airport, they were 100 yards away. How many dead would there be, if the perp hadn't attacked the only airline with armed employees?
California: A Closer Look -- Incident a wake-up call (Security at Airports )
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