Detroit case highlights need for LV to uncover terror threats

Jace Radke

Friday, April 25, 2003 | 10:55 a.m.

While a puzzle of possible terrorist activities continues to be put together in federal courtrooms in Detroit, law enforcement agencies in Las Vegas continue to sift through tips and leads looking for any hint of a terrorist threat to Southern Nevada.

The government's star witness in the trial of four men who were alleged to be part of a terrorist cell testified that the men had planned to destroy Las Vegas, but a defense witness is expected to discredit that testimony in a Detroit courthouse next week, according to the Washington Post.

These kinds of contradictions are faced on a daily basis by the FBI and local police as they try to find true threats and determine if those threats should be disclosed to the public.

"There is definitely a sense of urgency since Sept. 11," Las Vegas FBI spokesman Special Agent Daron Borst said. "The director has mandated that no terrorism lead go uncovered, so we investigate them all.

"We sift through them all, even the ones that don't turn out to be anything."

Authorities have repeatedly said they will warn the public if there is a credible threat, but that may cause more problems than it's worth, said Stephen Cimbala, a professor of political science at Penn State University, who has written 20 books on international and U.S. defense and security.

"Instead of broadcasting these vague threat warnings, they should be kept in official channels and given to law enforcement and first responders," Cimbala said. "If there is releasable information that says that there is a specific target in a specific city, that is one thing, but there is no constructive response the public can make to these vague warnings.

"There isn't anything for the public to do except go buy duct tape."

A concern for Metro Police is the possibility of people becoming complacent if warnings were to be issued too often.

"Sheriff (Bill) Young has made it clear that the No. 1 priority is preventing an event," said Metro Homeland Security Director Capt. Mike McClary said. "Since this sheriff took office four months ago there hasn't been an occasion where he has had to come forward and say there is an issue.

"We're not going to say that there is a threat until we're sure."

But Young has said he wouldn't have said that there wasn't evidence of a threat to Las Vegas had he known the details surrounding the case in Detroit. Reached this morning, Young said he would have no comment on the case until it is over.

Karim Koubriti, Farouk Ali-Haimoud, Ahmed Hannan and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, are all on trial as alleged sleeper-cell operatives, with the government's star witness Youssef Hmimssa testifying two weeks ago that the men had called Las Vegas the "city of Satan" and had video of the MGM Grand.

Hmimssa, a convicted credit card thief, could have his testimony discredited next week when a man who shared jail space in Detroit with him is expected to testify.

Omar Shishani, who on Monday pleaded guilty in Detroit to federal charges of possession of $12 million in counterfeit checks, is expected to testify that Hmimssa told him that he didn't know if the defendants were Muslim extremists or not, attorneys involved with the case told the Washington Post.

Shishani, a U.S. citizen of Chechen descent, was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in July carrying counterfeit cashier's checks drawn from an account at a non-existent California bank.

In June seven men were indicted by a federal grand jury in Las Vegas on charges of passing $800,000 in counterfeit checks at the MGM Grand from the same fictitious bank branch.

Shishani was accused of conspiring with Jimmy Leung and Aziz Massomipour, two of the seven men arrested at the MGM by Metro. The others arrested at the MGM were Asatour Magzanian, Jaman Khan, Mohammad Nadery, Hans Walton and Henry Davis.

Leung and Walton, who are in custody, and Magzanian, Nadery and Davis, who were released to the supervision of pretrial services, are scheduled to go to trial in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas on May 15.

Massomipour did not show up for a scheduled court hearing after being released and is now a fugitive. Khan has already pleaded guilty to counterfeit check charges in the case.

Locally the FBI has combined its criminal intelligence unit with its terrorist intelligence unit to allow agents to work closer together and pick up possible terrorist links to crimes faster, Borst said.

"Obviously there can be a lot of crossover where a basic crime can lead to something else," Borst said. "By combining the squads we've improved communications and our ability to sift through these leads."

Metro Police have analysts assigned to homeland security, who look for specific indicators of terrorist activity that Metro has outlined.

"It's an ongoing process where we compare to the day before, the week before, the year before," McClary said of the indicators that are considered classified. "We look for patterns and pass the information on to the sheriff to make a decision."

Borst, who has had extensive training in anti-terrorism and teaches a class to local law enforcement officers about terrorists, said there are stages to terrorist activity and what stage a possible attack is in plays a part in the notification process.

"The first thing we do is determine if the person or group has the means to carry out an attack," Borst said. "Do they have the financial backing, the expertise, or the ability to make a device or some other type of attack?"

A list of targets is developed and then slowly whittled down to a single target is the gestation of a terrorist attack, Borst said.

There is usually some research done on the target, normally through surveillance, and it can take months and years before a plan is tailored sufficiently to a single target.

"If we have a group sitting around talking about Las Vegas as the city of sin, that may not be far enough along in the cycle to be a credible threat," Borst said.

No matter how vigilant authorities are there is no way to guarantee that a threat will be discovered, McClary said.

"Nobody in the county sees everything," McClary said. "I could have 1,000 people working in here and we aren't going to see everything."

The Associated Press

contributed to this story.