The Oklahoma City Bombing And The Politics Of Terror Part 16

To the Muslim world, and especially terrorist groups such as the PLO, Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah, and Hamas, the U.S. a.s.sault on its ally Iraq represented a turning point in Islam's struggle against the West. The Gulf War marked the first time the United States had used an all-out, full-scale military a.s.sault on an Arab country, with devastating results.

Under the influence of religious figures such as Sheik Omar Rahman, the Mujahadeen (the Afghani freedom fighters who had been trained by the CIA) and their allies became staunch opponents of the United States. Thousands of Muslims from almost 40 countries flocked to Afghanistan and Pakistan during the war, and thousands remain there, training for the day when Islam will rise up in its final great Jihad against the West.[601]

To these groups, the Gulf War marked the signal for a new escalation in their war against the U.S. The bombing of the World Trade Center, the Federal Building in Oklahoma, the Al-Khubar military complex in Daharan, and possibly the shootdown of TWA 800, were all expressions of this rage against the United States.

On January 25, 1993, less than one month before the World Trade Center attack, Mir Aimal Kansi, a Pakistani, vented his rage by opening fire with an AK-47 outside CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Two CIA employees were killed and three others were wounded. Like Ramzi Yousef, Kansi was a native Baluchi. He was involved with the Pashtun Students Organization, the student wing of Mahmood Khan Achakzai's Pakhtoon Khwa Awami Milli Party, which claimed the CIA's sudden pull-out of Afghanistan resulted in millions of deaths at the hands of the Soviets. Kansi claimed the CIA had betrayed his father.[602]

Yousef himself spent considerable time in Baluchistan. Located in western Pakistan, Baluchistan is a nexus for the Muslim Jihad, and a major arms and drug network. Pakistan has served not only as a training center for the Mujahadeen, but a haven for Philippine terrorist groups such as Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Liberation Front, who have used the free-flowing Pakistani arms and drugs nexus in an effort to promote and finance their activities.[603]

Support in the form of arms and drugs flowed from Pakistan and Afghanistan to militant Islamic groups around the world, aided by the CIA, rogue intelligence officers, and senior U.S. officials in for their piece of the action - just as Oliver North's "Enterprise" would do with the Contras in Nicaragua. In fact, many of the same individuals were involved.

Yousef next showed up in the Philippines with a Libyan missionary named Mohaimen abu Bakr, leader of the Libyan Mullah Forces. It was there that he joined forces with an Afghani named Wali Khan Amin Shah and his old friend from Kuwait, Abdul Hakim Murad. They were there to train the Abu Sayyaf.

Headquartered on the Philippine island of Mindanao, the 400-member strong Abu Sayyaf has conducted over 10 major terrorist attacks in the last six years in its bid for autonomy, and is strongly allied with other Islamic revolutionary groups, such the Philippine-based Moro Liberation Front. Abu Sayyaf's funding and support comes from high-profile Islamic leaders such as Libyan President Muammar Qaddafi, and wealthy Islamic financiers such as Tariq Jana, a Pakistani businessman, and Osama bin Laden.

Considered by the State Department to be one of the world's preeminent sponsors of Islamic radicalism, bin Laden's threats to wage Jihad on Americans in the Middle East immediately preceded the November, 1995 blast at a U.S. military facility in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in which five Americans and two Indians were killed. Eight months later, a ma.s.sive truck-bomb killed 19 servicemen and injured 400 at Dhahran.

In a March, 1997 interview with the London Independent from his Afghani hideout, bin Laden warned of additional measures against U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, and said he had obtained the support of thousands of Pakistanis.[604]

Readers will also recall that General Wafiq al-Sammara'i, the former head of Iraqi military intelligence, told the London Independent a year earlier that the 1996 Dhahran bombing "strongly resembled plans drawn up by a secret Iraqi committee on which he served after the invasion of Kuwait...."[605]

Not surprisingly, in February of 1995, U.S. authorities named bin Laden and his brother-in-law, Mohammad Jamal Khalifa among 172 unindicted co-conspirators in the World Trade Center bombing and related plots to blow up New York City landmarks, including the Javitz Federal Building and the United Nations. Those plots were strongly linked to Iraq.[606]

Khalifa also ran an Islamic center in the Philippines linked to similar organizations in countries such as Iraq and Jordan. Given Abu Sayyaf's close ties with bin Laden, Khalifa, and their connections with the Mujahadeen, it is only natural that Ramzi Yousef, a Pakistani who is considered an Iraqi agent, would be involved with the group.

Abu Sayyaf's former military strategist, Edwin Angeles, who surrendered to Philippine authorities in February of '96, admitted that the Abu Sayyaf was in fact linked to Yousef and Murad - both of whom recently went on trial in New York for their role in "Project Bojinka" - a dramatic plan to blow up 12 U.S. airliners in a single day. The plot was foiled when police raided Yousef's Manila apartment on January 6, 1995, after a fire caused by the pair mixing bomb-making chemicals in a sink. While Murad was captured, Yousef escaped, making his way to Pakistan, where he was captured by police in February.[607]

Nine of his accomplices - six of them Iraqis - were rounded up one year later along with plastic explosives, blasting caps, detonating cords, time fuses, and fake pa.s.sports. The terrorists, including a Sudanese and two Saudis, were part of a plot to bomb various Western targets and a.s.sa.s.sinate Pope John Paul II during his January, 1995 Philippine visit.[608]

Before his capture however, Yousef, an engineering graduate of Britain's Swansea University, had time to try out his new bomb - an experimental form of nitroglycerin. The small test-bomb, taped under a seat on Philippine Air flight 434, killed one j.a.panese tourist and injured 10 others. Before the explosion, Yousef had safely departed the plane in Cebu City.

Another temporary resident of Cebu City was Terry Nichols. As discussed, Nichols had moved to Cebu City with his new wife, Marife Torres, a mail-order bride whom he met there in November of 1989. After trying life in Michigan and Nevada, the couple moved back to Cebu City in early 1993, where they lived for a short time.

According to Nichols' ex-wife Lana Padilla, her former husband had traveled to the Philippines about four times a year since meeting Marife. Although some of the visits were to see his new bride and make arrangements for her entry into the U.S., he occasionally traveled alone.[609]*

"Sometimes he went when Marife was in Kansas," wrote Padilla. "It didn't make sense, but I never asked why."[610]

Nichols told Padilla he was traveling to Cebu City to meet "potential business partners." The Michigan farmer was making the multi-thousand dollar trips, he said, to bring back little paper "b.u.t.terflies" - curious merchandise for a man intent on setting himself up in the military surplus business.[611]

It is also curious why Nichols carried two stun-guns on his last trip, why he left $20,000 taped behind a drawer for his son, and a note to McVeigh telling him "You're on your own," and "go for it!" in case he didn't come back, and why his son cried, "I'm never going to see my Dad again...."

Perhaps Nichols had reason to worry. According to FBI 302 reports and investigations conducted by McVeigh's defense team, Abu Sayyaf leader Edwin Angeles spoke of a terrorist meeting in the vicinity of the Del Monte labeling factory in Davao, on the Island of Mindanao, in late 1992 or early '93. It was there, Angeles said, that Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, Wali Khan Amin Shah, and several others discussed the Oklahoma City bombing plot.[612]*

One of the men at the meeting, recalled Angeles, introduced himself as "a farmer."[613]

When the "farmer" returned home from his last visit to the Philippines on January 16, 1995, and discovered that Padilla had opened the mysterious package and read the contents, he turned "white as a ghost."[614]

On April 19, 1995, Abdul Hakim Murad was sitting in his New York jail cell when the word went out that the Oklahoma City Federal Building had been bombed. Murad casually admitted to a prison guard that the Liberation Army of the Philippines - a group connected to Abu Sayyaf - was responsible.

Abu Sayyaf leader Edwin Angeles later corrected Murad for the record: "It was the Palestine Liberation Army and/or the Islamic Jihad which Murad was referring to," he said. "This army is a.s.sociated with Hamas and based in Lebanon...."

However, given the fact that Saudi intelligence informed the FBI that Iraq had hired Pakistanis who might not have known they were operating on behalf of Iraq, it is highly possible that Murad (a Pakistani) and Angeles were unaware of their true sponsor. As the Was.h.i.+ngton Post's Jack Anderson reported in 1991: "A preferable revenge for Iraq would involve having a 'surrogate terrorist' carry out a domestic attack that Hussein could privately take credit for...."

As Stephen Jones wrote in his March 25th Pet.i.tion for Writ of Mandamus: This terrorist attack was "contracted out" to persons whose organization and ideology was friendly to policies of the foreign power and included dislike and hatred of the United States government itself, and possibly included was a desire for revenge against the United States, with possible anti-black and anti-Semitic overtones. Because Iraq had tried a similar approach in 1990, but had been thwarted by Syrian intelligence information given to the United States, this time the information was pa.s.sed through an Iraqi intelligence base in the Philippines.[615][616]

The sighting of Terry Nichols with Islamic terrorists in the Philippines dovetails with Cary Gagan's sighting of Nichols with his "Iranian" friends - Omar and Ahmed - in Henderson, Nevada. Gagan recalled how Nichols looked "out-of-place" among his Arab comrades at the May '94 meeting.

Was Terry Nichols a.s.sociated with World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef, a reputed Iraqi agent? Was Timothy McVeigh a.s.sociated with Hussain al-Hussaini, a former Iraqi soldier? Were Yousef and Hussaini part of a terrorist network set up by Iraq to infiltrate the United States?

On January 28, 1991, the Was.h.i.+ngton Post reported that an Iraqi terrorist network was being sponsored and planned by Saddam Hussein. The article stated in part: Highly cla.s.sified US intelligence reports say that the United States has received information that Saddam has already dispatched more than 100 terrorists, both experienced and novice, to try to infiltrate the United States. One report, quoting sources inside Iraq, cites a specific number of terrorists - 160 - who have been sent off with missions in America.

That coincides with reports that at least two and possibly as many as four Iraqi diplomats in their emba.s.sy in Was.h.i.+ngton were monitored as they attempted to set up terrorist cells in the capital and elsewhere in the United States....

...A recent intelligence report says that Saddam has deposited money in several Swiss bank accounts that will automatically be paid out to terrorists no matter what happens to Saddam... Iraqis living in the United States who support Saddam strongly enough to resort to violence would probably be used to provide bank accounts, safe houses and materials for the experts who sneak into the country.

According to Northrop, information from a London banker "Sayanin" (source) showed that several million dollars was transferred from the Bank of Iraq, through the SWIFT international banking system in Brussels, Belgium, to a bank in Kingman, Arizona under the account name of "Nayaad." Attempts by Northrop to confirm this information were unsuccessful.[617]

What is also interesting is that Cary Gagan claimed to have received $250,000 from his Arab friend Omar, who wanted to set up an account for him. Omar and Gagan had also traveled to Kingman. The million dollar account was to be wired from a Swiss bank and deposited into the Bank of Cherry Creek in Denver.

Part of the plan was to allow Omar and Ahmed to purchase the Postal Center, a s.h.i.+pping and receiving store in Denver owned by George Colombo, who also operated a Ryder truck leasing operation across the street. Omar had asked Gagan to broker a deal to buy the facility from Colombo. He believes they were interested in the mail and truck rental facility. For some reason, the deal fell through.

While Gagan claims he was paid by Omar, there is no direct evidence that McVeigh or Nichols were funded by Gagan's Arab contacts. Yet there is circ.u.mstantial evidence that the two bombing defendants met with Sam Khalid, who spent considerable time in Las Vegas. The Arab high-roller frequented Binyon's Horseshoe, the Glitter Gulch, and the MGM casino, where Nichols would occasionally take his 12-year-old son Josh.[618]

As Northrop said, "gambling is a favorite pastime of Sunni Moslems...." Was Omar simply there to gamble, or did he have another agenda?

According to Gagan: "Omar and Ahmed were wiring money in and out of MGM. They used to get money - huge amounts of money - they were using these wire transfers."

Former high-ranking CIA operative Gunther Russbacher told author Rodney Stich (Defrauding America) that Binyon's Horseshoe was one of the casinos used for money laundering and political payoffs. Khalid is a regular at Binyon's Horseshoe.

Two other frequent visitors to Binyon's Horseshoe, it appears, were Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh. The two men attended the Claude Hall Gun Show in Las Vegas in November and January of 1994, stayed at Padilla's house, and reportedly frequented Binyon's and a strip joint next door called the Glitter Gulch, where Khalid is also a regular.[619]

While no one at the casinos would cooperate in placing Khalid with the two bombing suspects, Padilla said that Nichols had met with "Middle Eastern" men while in Las Vegas.[620]

That information dovetails with Cary Gagan's testimony. As stated earlier, the federal informant said he met with approximately eight men - five of whom were Middle Easterners - at the Western Motel in Las Vegas on May 16, 1994. There was an Arab man from Oklahoma City who Gagan referred to as the "leader."

The Eighth man was Terry Nichols.

The question remained, who was Omar, and was he connected with Sam Khalid? Interestingly, Khalid's alias is "Omar."[621]

In an attempt to track Khalid's whereabouts in Las Vegas, KFOR's Jayna Davis hired a security guard and part-time P.I. named Louis Crousette. Crousette had worked at the Glitter Gulch. In a transcript of the conversation, Davis asks Crousette if Angie (not her real name), Khalid's favorite stripper, recognized him: Crousette: "She knew who he was. Her eyes... her... her... how do I want to say this? Her whole demeanor changed. She went from being a calm person to being a scared little rabbit."

Davis: "All right. And she said she didn't want to get involved..."

Crousette: "Does the word getting up and running and leaving the place tell you anything?

Davis: "Okay. So..."

Crousette: "She left. She got up and left. She left her money and left. She grabbed her stuff and was out the door."

According to Crousette, Angie also described an Arab man in the Glitter Gulch acting as a "recruiter," who introduced Khalid to a pair of "skinny white guys." Could these two skinny white guys have been Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols?

Angie declined to say, telling Davis that she'd "wind up at the bottom of Lake Meade" if she talked.[622][623]*

But just who was this "recruiter" that Crousette spoke of? Crousette saw him hobn.o.bbing in a wealthy part of town with a man in a white BMW. Just who was in the car with him wasn't clear. However, the information is curious in light of Gagan's report that he and his Arab friends met at the Player's Club, an upscale apartment complex in a Las Vegas suburb.

Also mentioned in Crousette's phone conversation is "Jaffer," an apparent reference to Jaffer Oshan (not his real name). Oshan, who sometimes goes by the name Ossan Jaffar, is an electrical engineer who works for Khalid, and translates for his rusty Arabic.

Oshan was reportedly the target of FBI surveillance at the same time Khalid was being indicted for insurance fraud. Like Abraham Ahmed, Oshan disappeared just before the bombing, traveling to Jordan. And like Ahmed, he gave a similar story, telling Ernie Cranfield he was going to the Middle East to attend to family matters - in this case - his own wedding. According to Cranfield, he did not marry.

A native Jordanian, Oshan showed up in KFOR's surveillance photos with Khalid and Hussain al-Hussaini. Crousette showed the photos to his "intelligence" source: Crousette: Three people that I know of that went in service - two feds and two of them were ex-company (CIA). They know who these guys are. When I showed them these pictures they looked at me and told me, "Get the h.e.l.l out of it. What the h.e.l.l are you doing doing this?"

Davis: Did they tell you they were Iraqi Intelligence?

Crousette: Two of them did, yes.... The feds know who did it.

Davis: And they're not arresting them?

Crousette: I'm not gonna' get involved.

Davis: Are they Middle Eastern?

Crousette: I'm not getting involved on this. Okay. I'm sending in my bill. I'm getting out of it now....[624]

Crousette has since avoided all attempts to contact him. Gordon Novel, an investigator who used to work for District Attorney Jim Garrison, spent a week in Las Vegas attempting to talk with the former security guard. "He was real adamant about not wanting to be talked to," said Novel.

As a frustrated Novel was about to leave, a large goon appeared at his hotel room with an automatic tucked in his belt and some words of advice: "You betta' stay da f.u.c.k out odda Oklahoma thing," he warned. "Work on da Waco thing if ya wanna, but stay out odda Oklahoma thing. There's a lodda sand out dare where no one will ever find ya."

"He had a very serious big gun," said Novel, "and he wasn't a cop - I don't know what he was."[625]

Why would an apparent Mob mule be concerned about steering an investigator away from a Las Vegas connection to the Oklahoma City bombing? Was Khalid connected to the Mob?

KFOR first b.u.mped into Sam Khalid when reporter Brad Edwards received a mysterious phone call from Sharon Twilley. Twilley was working at the time for Khalid's real-estate business, Sahara Properties, which he owned with his ex-wife Carol, who died in the bombing. A three-year employee, Twilley did a variety of jobs for Khalid, including bookkeeping and acting as rental agent for his 500-plus properties.

Twilley told Edwards and Davis that she had seen her boss in the company of Abraham Ahmed, who had been detained by the FBI as a possible suspect on April 19 as he attempted to fly from Oklahoma to Jordan.

According to Twilley and Ernie Cranfield, Ahmed had been seen driving the brown Chevy pick-up seen speeding away from the bombing, back and forth to Khalid's place in the days prior to the bombing. Ahmed's increasingly frequent visits coincided with the arrival of Hussain al-Hussaini and five other Iraqis in November. Twilley also said that Khalid began acting very secretive after the arrival of the six men, and would only speak to Ahmed in Arabic.

Yet, perhaps most incredibly, both Cranfield and Twilley had seen a yellow Mercury Marquis parked at Khalid's office; Twilley said she saw Abraham Ahmed in the pa.s.senger seat.[626]

The presence of Ahmed wasn't the only thing that raised eyebrows at Sahara properties in the days following the bombing. Cranfield told the FBI and Edwards that he saw one of Khalid's Arab employees, a man named Haider al-Saiidi, acting strangely ebullient after the bombing.

"When the news reports first came about some Islamic group being responsible, well Haider kind of laughed about that," recalled Cranfield. "I heard they found three babies that was dead from the blast, and I went and told the guys... and John Doe 2 (Cranfield's reference to Hussaini) started crying. He went out on the porch to cover his face and he stood by the wall crying. He was upset that children got hurt. He was really upset. And Haider was laughing because he was crying."[627]*

To make things even stranger, Khalid decided to visit Las Vegas on the evening of April 20, the day after his ex-wife Carol was killed in the bombing. It seems Khalid had asked her to help him with his taxes on Monday, her regularly scheduled day at the Department of Agriculture. Consequently, she went into work on Wednesday, her day off. As news reports showed Dr. Espe, Carol's boss, being carried down a ladder by rescue workers, Khalid's daughter Heather began crying. She knew her mom worked in that office.

"We was all sitting around the office watching the news," said Cranfield. "And when they showed Espe being carried down that ladder, she (Najaya, Khalid's current wife) just burst out laughing. Heather was crying, and Najaya was laughing."[628]

Some might consider it odd that a girl's stepmother would burst out laughing upon learning that her mother had been killed. Some might consider it stranger still for a man to be partying on the eve of his ex-wife's death.

Was there a motive? Did Khalid know there would be a bombing on Wednesday? Did he know Carol would go into work on Wednesday to make up for her day off?

"It was set up," said Cranfield. "I know it was set up. He got rid of her because of the taxes she filed."

According to Cranfield, Khalid reported to the IRS that his employees were sub-contractors, thus avoiding having to pay benefits. Khalid's steady worker of nine years also told me that his boss made up business cards for the employees that purported to show their "independent" status.

It was Carol on whom fell the responsibility of preparing the returns. Cranfield caught a glimpse of her on Monday, two days before her death.

"She didn't look happy that morning when she was doing his taxes," recalled Cranfield. "She did not look happy at all... 'cause he was f.u.c.king the government over the taxes."[629]

At the time of this writing there was a case pending against Khalid for tax fraud. Carol most likely would have testified against him in that case.

The circ.u.mstances at Sahara Properties in the days after the bombing were too much for Cranfield. "I left the job site and went to the office and said 'I want my money.' I told them I didn't want to work for no terrorists. I was so... I feared that these people were involved, and them workers were involved in this. And with all the strange things that was going on, I wasn't going to take no chances. And when they found Abraham [Ahmed], that was it. That was all I needed to know. That's all I wanted to know. I wanted to get the h.e.l.l out of there!"

The brown Chevy pick-up that Ahmed had been seen driving was found abandoned the Tuesday after the bombing at the Woodscape Apartment complex on Route 66. Resident Jeannie Royer recalled a heavy-set Middle-Eastern man getting out of the truck which was left near a storage shed. The man gave Boyer a hard look that said, "You'd better forget what you just saw."

The man showed up a week later and followed Royer while she was out walking her dog.[630] When shown a photo of a heavy-set Middle Eastern suspect by KFOR (one of Khalid's workers), she said, "It sure does look like him. I would sure like to see a close-up of his eyes. Those eyes of his were frightening!"[631]

The abandoned pick-up, incidentally, had been painted yellow, and the serial numbers ground off. "You could see the yellow over-spray all over the chrome fender," said Joe Royer. The FBI then towed the truck to its impound lot, and nothing has been heard about it since.[632]

What is even more interesting (or coincidental, depending on your point of view) is that Khalid owns the property on which a body shop is located - Route 66 Auto Collision - a nondescript, run down place on the far side of town. Route 66, curiously, is two miles directly due west of the Woodscape Apartments.

A body shop would be a very convenient place to paint a pick-up.

Khalid bought the property in 1994 at a tax auction. The sale was disputed by the current owner, Rex Carmichael, and as of this writing, the case was in court. "I'm sure it wasn't painted there," said Carmichael. "Khalid hasn't hadn't had anything to do with that body shop.... he's tried to get it, he's tried to own it, he's tried to possess it from me...."[633]

Interestingly, an anonymous caller to Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key who claimed to be a friend of the brother of a man involved in the bombing, told him that a meeting of bombing conspirators took place at a garage on Northwest 39th Street. Although he didn't state the name, Route 66 is located right on Northwest 39th Street.[634]

After the bombing, Route 66 changed it's name to Tom's, but is not listed in the phone book or the information directory under either name. KFOR's P.I., Bob Jerlow, told me he staked the place out for five days but never saw anybody go in for an estimate. "It's probably a chop-shop," said a retired police officer.[635]

If so, it may fit into what Cranfield told me next: "They (Khalid and his employees) would always buy cars, then I found out that they was taking them and running them to Mexico, running trips to Mexico and selling the cars.... Within two weeks to a month, everyone of them was driving a different car. They wouldn't have it but less than a month, then they'd be rid of it, and you wouldn't see it again.

"I seen them many times up there at this garage (Route 66). It was the same guys that came in [in November]. The same six that came in. Just them - them six."

One of the six was Hussain al-Hussaini.

The date November, 1994 may be prophetic. Three witnesses in Stillwater, about an hour's drive north of Oklahoma City, saw a man who closely resembles Ramzi Yousef in late October, early November, 1994. The man, who called himself Y.T., was managing Boomer's Used Auto Sales in Stillwater, along with a man who resembled John Doe 2. He drove a yellow Mercury Marquis similar to Timothy McVeigh's, albeit with a vinyl roof.

Ronnie White (not his real name), who was working as a mechanic for Boomer's at the time, said the men ran a "shoddy" operation and were "hostile" towards customers. The business, he said, was buying used cars and s.h.i.+pping them overseas, possibly to Kuwait. while in itself not an unusual practice, White said he saw as much as $100,000 pa.s.s through per month, which is unusual for such a small operation.

White says the two men suddenly departed for Ohio the last week of October, 1994. They told him "Don't tell anybody where we're going." They left no forwarding address and no way for the customers to pay their bills. (Coincidentally perhaps, Timothy McVeigh was in Kent, Ohio on October 5.) Said customer Michael Reed, "They were some pretty strange people. They were supposed to be running a car lot, but they were always gone." They returned from their supposed car-buying trip the first week of November, with one used Honda.

White went to the FBI when he saw Yousef's wanted poster in the local police station. Like many witnesses, the FBI appeared to show no interest.[636]

Was the man these witnesses saw really internationally wanted fugitive Ramzi Yousef? A Was.h.i.+ngton source familiar with Yousef and the World Trade Center bombing doesn't think it likely that Yousef reentered the county after the 1993 attack. The FBI put Yousef in the Philippines in November and December of '94, just in time to launch an ill-fated attack on President Clinton during his APEC visit, but his exact timeline was never established.

Yousef himself is a chameleon. One FBI photo depicts him as a thin, haunted-looking criminal, the other a boyish-looking foreign exchange student. Yet all three witnesses in Stillwater are adamant. "I was shocked," said Michael Reed, "it looked just like him."[637]

Had the Arab cell involved in the bombing reinlisted the aid of expert bomb maker Ramzi Yousef for the Oklahoma City attack? A U.S. Marshall told Jayna Davis that he believed the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings were linked. Other sources expressed similar opinions.