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