Man wanted for Oklahoma bombing held
American extremists are main suspects as death toll passes 6
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Your support makes all the difference.Federal investigators yesterday arrested one of the two white males sought in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing outrage, and were conducting an armed raid on a house near Decker, Michigan, some 800 miles to the north-east, to seize two members of a paramilitary radical group.
The man arrested was named as Timothy McVeigh, previously known as "John Doe I" in the composite sketch of the two men said to have rented the truck used in the bombing.
The two men wanted in Michigan were reported to be two brothers, Terry Lynn Nichols and James Douglas Nichols, both alleged to be members of the so-called "Michigan Militia". According to various sources here, the militia held a recent meeting in Junction City, Kansas, 250 miles north of Oklahoma City where the truck was rented last Monday.
The Attorney General, Janet Reno, told a press conference that all the evidence indicated the crime was "domestic in nature".
Events yesterday were moving at breakneck speed, and officials warned of the need for caution. But if confirmed, the news would end previous speculation that Middle Eastern elements were behind the outrage, and suggest that the worst terrorist outrage in US history was the work of domestic far right white supremacist circles.
Earlier, as the focus switched away from the Arab/Islamic trail, officials here were indicating that the crime may have been carried out by Americans, either on behalf of domestic or international drug interests or out of a grudge against the government, possibly linked to proliferating white supremacist movements here.
According to the description issued with the warrant on Thursday, Mr McVeigh is white, 27 years old, 5ft 10 inches or 5ft 11 inches tall, and with light brown crewcut hair. He was stopped by police for speeding near the town of Perry, 60 miles north of Oklahoma City, on Wednesday hours after the blast. Law enforcement sources in Perry said a suspect was in the Noble County Jail.
Earlier, after more intensive questioning, the authorities released Ibrahim Ahmad, the Jordanian American of Palestinian extraction who was picked up at Heathrow airport by British immigration officials en route to Amman and returned to the US as a possible "material witness" to the crime.
Mr Ahmad, an electrical engineer who lived in Oklahoma City, was first stopped by US immigration when he tried to leave the country on Wednesday evening. But after a second round of interrogation in Washington, he was set free. "He co-operated, and we're satisfied. He can go wherever he wants," a Justice Department spokesman said.
Hours later came first word of the arrest on the NBC and CNN television networks. The crucial breakthrough appears to have been the vehicle identification number (VIN) carried on an axle of the 24ft truck believed to have carried the 4,000lbs of crude explosive used in the blast, and found among the debris near the scene.
Even before Mr McVeigh's arrest, the two "John Doe" suspects were thought to be "all-American" white males, possibly deserters from a military base in Kansas, the state immediately north of Oklahoma. Specialists considered it highly unlikely that a Middle Eastern terrorist cell in the US would have recruited ordinary Americans for so big an operation.
As speculation swirled, President Clinton again urged the country not to jump to premature conclusions, "unsupported by the known evidence".
If the outrage did not originate in the Middle East, South American or US drug interests, white supremacists, or deranged individuals with a grudge against the government are now being considered as the most likely culprits.
The possibility that Americans have wrought such carnage upon their fellow countrymen stunned many of those who are still grappling to come to terms with the concept that such an outrage could occur in the heartland of the United States.
"We don't think that someone from America could do this to their own," said one of the many Oklahomans in mourning over the tragedy, as the official death count climbed to 60. The body count does not include an unknown number of victims still contained in the wrecked building.
Vigil of hope, page 8
Leading article, page 14
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