Third letter bomb found at U.N.

Ties to London explosion at newspaper office suspected

A L S O:
Blast injures 2 in London office of Arab newspaper

January 13, 1997
Web posted at: 2:50 p.m. EST

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- A third letter bomb was discovered at the United Nations Monday night, hours after two other bombs were discovered in the building and two floors had to be evacuated.

And just a few hours earlier, another letter bomb exploded at the London offices of the Arab-language newspaper Al-Hayat, injuring two people, one of them seriously.

At least a dozen letter bombs have been mailed to Al-Hayat's bureaus in Washington, New York, London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia this month. The London bomb is the only one to have exploded.

All of the bombs discovered at the U.N. were in greeting card-sized envelopes. The previous two were doused with water from water cannons until they were disabled. The third was discovered as New York City Police Bomb Squad personnel were on the scene and investigating.

The location of the package has not been divulged, but the squad had brought in extra x-ray equipment and inspection of the mail was going on through the night.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the discovery of the earlier bombs, calling them "a cowardly act ... an assault on the United Nations itself."

"This is a house of peace and we work in the interest of all nations and this kind of activity is not something that anyone can condone," Annan said. "I appeal to them to desist and use other means to raise their complaints."

In London, two mail clerks were wounded, one seriously, when a bomb exploded in the Al-Hayat mail room. Scotland Yard said police found three other bombs there, and blew them up without injury.

U.N. Spokesman Fred Eckhard on first bomb discovery
	How the bomb got into the building... (2MB/24 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)
	The letter was confirmed to be a bomb... (374K/17 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said that security at the United Nations had been increased after eight letter bombs were found in the United States on January 2-3. Al-Hayat's Washington, D.C., office received four bombs made to look like Christmas cards at that time. A fifth, addressed to the newspaper, was found in the postal system.

About the same time, two letter bombs were delivered to the Leavenworth federal prison in Kansas and one was found at a nearby post office. None of the eight devices exploded.

The FBI has dismissed as "speculative" reports it is investigating a possible connection between those bombs and the 1993 bombing of New York's World Trade Center and a foiled plot to bomb other New York landmarks. One of four Islamic fundamentalists convicted in the Trade Center bombing is imprisoned at Leavenworth, along with a man convicted in the plot to blow up the United Nations and other places in New York.

London Police Superintendent Derrick Kelleher said that three more suspect devices were found in Al-Hayat's offices after Monday's explosion, and all three were detonated in controlled explosions.

One of the two men injured in the blast was hospitalized with facial and abdominal injuries, while the second was in shock, Kelleher said.

The eight bombs mailed to U.S. addresses all bore Alexandria, Egypt, postmarks. Al-Hayat security employees said they believed the latest letter bombs were also postmarked in Alexandria, but their report could not be confirmed.

The editor of Al-Hayat told CNN that he suspected Islamic fundamentalists were behind all of the letter bomb attempts. Journalists working for the paper said they were disturbed and worried by the attacks.

Correspondents Richard Roth, Margaret Lowrie and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Third letter bomb found at U.N.

Ties to London explosion at newspaper office suspected

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