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
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