An attempt to blow up the El Al freight terminal at Kennedy Airport was foiled early this morning when FBI agents and members of the Police Bomb Squad seized a large cache of explosives in the trunk of a car parked near the terminal on the airport’s northwest boundary. The FBI and police acted on a tip that the terminal was to be blown up, police said. The discovery was made at 12:30 a.m. New York time.
Police said the cache consisted of two plastic bags of explosives, three five gallon plastic containers of gasoline and three 20 pound bottles of propane gas. The propane bottles were rigged with blasting caps and tining devices to ignite the gas and set off the rest of the explosives.
NO EFFECT ON EL AL OPERATIONS
Menachem Cohen, vice-president of operations of El Al North America, issued a statement saying: “Terrorist efforts to commit acts of sabotage at the cargo-orange terminal of El Al at Kennedy International Airport were thwarted due to the alertness and combined efforts of local, federal and Israeli security services. There was no damage, no injuries and no effect on El Al operations.”
The car in which the explosives were found was described as a green 1973 Plymouth which had been rented from a car rental agency. Police refused to disclose the nature of the tip that led them to the explosives or to reveal the identity of the person who rented the car.
Police also refused to speculate on the identity of the person or persons responsible for the attempt. A police spokesman said no specific threats by activists had been received before the tip-off. The attempt occurred exactly two weeks after the shooting down of a Libyan airliner by Israeli fighters over Sinai and coincided with Premier Golda Meir’s visit to New York.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
