The terror countdown

There was something about the last man off the 6 p.m. ferry from Victoria, B.C., to Port Angeles, Wash., that didn't seem right to U.S. Customs inspector Diana Dean last Tuesday. She threw a couple of routine questions at him, and he choked, claiming to be a French Canadian named Benni Noris. When officials opened the trunk of his rented Chrysler, they found what looked like the contents of a bombmaker's shopping cart: 118 lbs. of urea; two 22-oz., three-quarters-full jars of nitroglycerine; 14 lbs. of sulfate; and four timing devices consisting of Casio watches, nine-volt batteries and circuit boards. The man bolted but didn't make it six blocks before being captured.

The arrest came at a tense time for U.S. law-enforcement agents, who are on the lookout for possible terrorism planned to coincide with the millennium celebrations. "He's connected with someone," said Richard Clarke, U.S. national coordinator for counterterrorism. "People don't just walk around with that stuff in their kit bag." One theory is that Noris--who, law-enforcement officials say, is actually an Algerian named Ahmed Ressam, 32--had been dispatched to wreak havoc at the New Year's Eve celebration at Seattle's Space Needle, which is close to a hotel where he had reserved a room. Some speculated, though with little hard evidence, that he was backed by the Afghanistan-based terrorist Osama bin Laden. Whatever Ressam was planning, his arrest has heightened the state of alert as the countdown to New Year's Eve continues.

The State Department has issued a warning to American travelers that terrorists may be planning attacks on locations around the world where New Year's revelers are expected to gather. While overseas bad guys like Bin Laden are the chief suspects, fears have also been raised about doomsday cults and crackpot racists in the U.S. Two middle-aged men were arrested in Sacramento, Calif., this month on charges of plotting to blow up two massive propane tanks. And federal agents are investigating the theft of nearly 1,000 lbs. of dynamite and ammonium nitrate from an Arizona rock quarry last week. While such incidents may be unrelated to the millennium, they are being closely investigated by a host of law-enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the CIA, the Defense and Treasury departments and Customs.

The main worry overseas is Bin Laden, who according to Clarke has expanded his network from his base in Afghanistan to 52 countries. Bin Laden is drawing on new financial backers to supplement his personal fortune and the profits that Clarke says he reaps from heroin sales, and he has drawn a diverse crew of adherents from Libya to the Philippines. "He has an indigenous base in each country that stays quiet," says Clarke. "When assault teams come into the country, there's support there. It's a very different type of terrorism than we've ever seen before."

The U.S. is working with local governments to bring down Bin Laden's cells and has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his capture. Government agents have launched psychological warfare, leaking reports to the Pakistani press of U.S. assassination teams sent to take out Bin Laden. The stories have apparently had an effect. He is reported to be sleeping in a different location every night.

Back home most of the attention is being directed at right-wing militias and doomsday cults. "Religious motivation and the new-world-order conspiracy theory are the two driving forces behind the potential for millennial violence," says an FBI report circulated to police stations around the country. Investigators are raising defenses and closely monitoring people considered suspicious. "We are looking for groups and individuals, and if they move, they're going to get caught," says Clarke. The FBI's 56 field offices will be open New Year's Eve, and staffs at the command centers will have representatives from counterterror task forces. Most of the agents assigned to these units will be on beeper duty, not in the office, but all must be close at hand, armed and ready to move. Some field offices, such as those in Washington, New York City and Los Angeles, have teams ready to be deployed instantly around the world to investigate terrorism against Americans wherever it may strike.

The terror countdown

A capture on the U.S.-Canadian border heightens fears of a millennial attack against Americans

By MASSIMO CALABRESI

--With reporting by Elaine Shannon/Washington

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Cover Date: December 27, 1999