Two Middle Eastern men who were said to be only hours away from pulling off a suicide bombing at a busy subway station have been linked by the FBI to the radical Muslim group Hamas, a federal law enforcement source told The Associated Press on Friday.
Investigators now are trying to determine "whether they were just fanatics acting alone or were part of a broader plan," said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The timing in relation to the bombings in Israel is very suspicious, or it's an incredible coincidence."Hamas has come under suspicion in Wednesday's suicide bombings at a crowded Jerusalem market that killed 15 people.
The New York suspects, wounded during a raid on their Brooklyn apartment on Thursday, are from the West Bank. One was linked to Hamas by intelligence sources, the other through an immigration document he had filled out in which he said he had been accused in Israel of having been in a terrorist organization. The organization, the source said, was Hamas.
But James Kallstrom, head of the FBI's New York office, said investigators had not yet linked the suspects to Hamas. "We don't know yet, and therefore, it is totally wrong to say we do know," he said.
Gazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, 23, and Lafi Khalil, 22, were shot in the raid when one of them lunged and pulled at least one of the switches on an explosive device, authorities said. Five devices resembling pipe bombs were seized.
The FBI found a suicide note in the apartment written by Abu Mezer denouncing the persecution of Arabs and expresses support for Hamas, ABC reported Friday. Abu Mezer was arrested in 1990, at the age of 15, during the Palestinian uprising and sent to an Israeli prison camp, where he says he learned how to make bombs from other prisoners, ABC said.
NBC, meanwhile, reported that Abu Mezer was stopped in Washington state in January trying to enter the country, but was let go with the requirement that he leave the United States by the end of this month.