Sat, Jul 06, 2002 page1

• Egyptian gunman kills two at LA airport

  ATTACK The US' third-largest airport was in turmoil yesterday after a man opened fire at Israel's El Al ticket counter, killing two people before being shot by a guard

  • AP
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  Police looking for possible links to terrorism searched the apartment of an Egyptian man who opened fire at Los Angeles' airport, killing two people at Israel's El Al ticket counter before being shot to death by a guard.

  The shootout came on the Fourth of July, when the possibility of terror attacks had put security on high alert around the country. The FBI, however, was withholding judgment on whether to label the attack as terrorism.

  

  Law enforcement officials monitor July 4 festivities and news from the command center in Washington on Thursday. Breaking news of the shooting at Los Angeles International Airport can be seen on the video monitor in the upper left corner.

  PHOTO: NY TIMES

  "We've never said it's not terrorism," FBI spokesman Matt McLaughlin said. "We can't rule that out, but there's nothing to indicate terrorism at this point."

  McLaughlin also suggested it might be a hate crime.

  Israeli officials said they would consider the shooting a terror attack until proven otherwise.

  The shooter was identified as Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, a 41-year-old limousine driver who listed July 4 as his birthday on one of two driver's licenses. He opened fire in Los Angeles International Airport and was shot dead by an El Al guard.

  Travelers threw themselves to the ground or scattered for cover when gunfire erupted at the El Al counter. Ticket agent Victoria Hen, 25, and Yaakov Aminov, 46, a jeweler and father of eight who was dropping off a friend, were fatally shot before two El Al guards overwhelmed Hadayet.

  The guards and a woman were wounded; another woman suffered heart problems.

  The FBI released the gunman's name late Thursday as police in suburban Irvine, 56km southeast of the airport, searched his apartment. Police Lieutenant Sam Allevato said they were looking for his wife and two sons. Neighbors said the family had gone to Egypt for the summer.

  Federal agents later arrived with a search warrant to examine the apartment, from which Hadayet ran his livery service, Five Star Limo. They carried away a computer, books, binders and boxes and bags of material.

  Neighbors said Hadayet was quiet, but became incensed when an upstairs neighbor hung large American and Marine Corps flags from a balcony above his front door after Sept. 11. The flags remained there Thursday night.

  That neighbor declined to talk to reporters, but another neighbor, Steve Thompson, said Hadayet "complained about it to the apartment manager. He thought it was being thrown in his face."

  Hadayet, who also went by the last name Ali, had California driver's licenses listing two different birth dates -- April 7, 1961, and July 4, 1961 -- according to the FBI.

  The FBI also released a photograph of Hadayet that was taken for gun registrations.

  The gunman carried a .45-caliber semi-automatic Glock pistol, a 9mm handgun and a 15cm knife, but had no identification, said Ron Iden, assistant director of the Los Angeles FBI office.

  David Parkus heard five or six shots and turned from the Singapore Airlines counter to see the gunman wrestling with a guard. A second guard charged and shot the gunman, Parkus said. As the gunman collapsed, Parkus said, he saw a hunting knife fall to the floor.

  One guard was hit on the forehead with the butt of the gun and cut on the right arm, and the second guard was cut on the lower back, stabbed in his left thigh and had a superficial gunshot wound to his right thigh, said Parkus, a trauma surgeon from Texas.

  Parkus said he helped hold the gunman as he died, then performed CPR on two victims.

  Thousands of people evacuated the international terminal and waited for hours to resume their travels. Thirty-five flights were delayed, affecting 10,500 passengers, during one of the airport's busiest travel periods, officials said.

  Hadayet's car was found in a nearby parking structure, triggering an evacuation there until a bomb squad found nothing unusual in the black Mercedes.

  Hakin Hasidh, 43, of Dusseldorf, Germany, said he was standing in the line next to the El Al counter.

  "The first couple of shots, everybody just stood there, frozen like I was," Hasidh said.

  "It's really hard to tell whether he was aiming at the counter, at people behind the counter or at people in line," he said.
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