February 12, 1995, New York Times, Broad Terror Campaign Is Foiled By Fire in Kitchen, Officials Say, by Philip Shenon,

February 12, 1995, New York Times, Broad Terror Campaign Is Foiled By Fire in Kitchen, Officials Say, by Philip Shenon,

The neighbors had wondered what was going on behind the locked door of Apartment 603, but it wasn't until there was a small fire in the apartment last month that they learned the truth about their mysterious, silent neighbor.

The tenant, who called himself Naji Haddad and said he was Moroccan, was apparently building bombs, and late on Jan. 6, he accidentally set off a fire as he mixed the explosive chemicals in the kitchen sink of his dingy one-bedroom apartment a few blocks from Manila Bay.

The police say that as acrid black smoke poured from the apartment, the man fled into the night, leaving behind containers of acid, timing devices, lengths of wire, and, most important, a laptop computer and computer disk, filled with details of his plots both to kill Pope John Paul II, who was due to arrive in Manila a week later, and to blow up American jets flying routes in the Far East.

Any lingering doubt about the seriousness of the terrorist threat was ended when several tenants of the Josefa Apartments were shown photographs of a 27-year-old man whose name they did not recognize -- Ramzi Ahmed Yousef -- but whose face they knew all too well. "Haddad was Yousef," one of the neighbors said today. "We had a terrorist living here. He was that man in Apartment 603."

Mr. Yousef was arrested this week in Islamabad, flown to New York and arraigned on charges that he was also the mastermind of the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, an attack blamed on Muslim fundamentalists that left six people dead. The tip that led to the arrest came from a South African Muslim couple living across the street from his rooming house, officials of the Pakistan Government said today [ Page 40 ] .

American and Philippine authorities say it is clear from the evidence gathered here that for Mr. Yousef, the attack on the World Trade Center may have been intended to mark only the beginning of a career as an international terrorist.

Until the accidental fire in the Manila apartment, they said, Mr. Yousef was on the verge of a wave of far deadlier terrorist attacks across Asia, possibly including the assassination of the Pope during his tour of the Philippines last month.

In an interview today, the Philippines Interior Secretary, Rafael Alunan, confirmed publicly for the first time that the police had found a computer disk during their search of the apartment on Jan. 6, and that "on the floppy disk, there were many names, many aliases," including the name and aliases of Mr. Yousef.

Mr. Alunan said that terrorists may have "come close" to pulling off their plans to kill the Pope and to blow up the jets of American air carriers operating in Asia.

"It's American planes with an 's' -- plural, not singular" he said, adding that the terrorists planned to put bombs aboard American jets departing elsewhere in the region. "We stumbled onto the information," he said, noting that the police were called because of the fire. The bomb-makers, he said, "were sloppy."

While the authorities have refused to confirm accounts of what else was found, employees and tenants of the building recalled today how the police had removed the laptop computer, the computer disk, several boxes filled with bottles of acid, wire, timing devices, a soldering gun and a glossy photograph of the Pope.

Roman Mariano, 27, the security guard who first told the police of the fire, said that he also saw the police remove four lengths of pipe -- each about two feet long -- and that one pipe was wrapped in plastic and filled with what the police have since called explosives.

Residents of the building say that it was the action of Mr. Mariano, who insisted that the police be called over the objections of the mysterious tenant, that led the tenant to flee Apartment 603. It also resulted in the arrest of the tenant's companion, a man who gave his name as Said Ahmed and said he was Pakistani.

American and Philippine officials have refused to comment on Mr. Ahmed and his whereabouts.

In Washington, spokesmen for the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation would not comment on the case, but other law-enforcement officials said the account of the fire and search of the apartment was accurate, and they confirmed that the plotters intended to kill the Pope and attack American commercial aircraft.

"I was always suspicious of Yousef because he never would return my greeting," said Mr. Mariano, the guard. "He was always looking down at the ground, like he was thinking of something, planning. People would see him, but nobody would ever talk to him. And he wore sunglasses, day and night."

If terrorists had indeed wanted to try to kill the Pope during his five-day visit to Manila, the Josefa Apartments would have been an obvious staging area for the attack.

The six-story, 30-room building is on the Quirino Highway, a major route that was used repeatedly by the Pope's entourage last month. The building is also about 500 feet from the home of the Vatican's Ambassador to the Philippines, which was the Pope's residence in Manila.

Tenants and building employees recalled that when the man who called himself Naji Haddad inspected the building in early December, he insisted on an apartment with a clear view of the highway, even though several other vacant apartments offered a spectacular view of Manila Bay.

According to the rental agreement, Mr. Haddad wanted only a one-month lease for Apartment 603 beginning Dec. 8, and paid 11,880 Philippine pesos, or $478.65. On the form, Mr. Haddad gave a home address in Rabat, Morocco, a business address in Casablanca and a Moroccan passport number. He wrote that he was a mechanical engineer.

After moving in, Mr. Haddad was often seen with Mr. Ahmed, and both were recalled by other tenants as aloof and unfriendly. Although Mr. Yousef has been described as Muslim fundamentalist, his former neighbors say that he was never obvious about his religion, that he dressed well in Western-style clothing and that he appeared to enjoy Manila's raucous night life.

"He often went out late at night, but that is not surprising, since many Arabs come to the Philippines just for R & R -- to go out to the bars at night," said a former neighbor. Like other tenants, he spoke on condition that he not be identified, fearing retaliation.

Although the Josefa Apartments offer daily maid service, Mr. Haddad usually turned the maids away.

They were allowed into the apartment only a few times in December and January, "and he would watch us -- watch everything we do -- very closely," one maid said, recalling today that he had seen a soldering gun, lengths of wires and timing devices on Mr. Haddad's kitchen table during one of the brief visits. "I did not know what it was all for."

On a tour of the apartment today, the maid pointed to deep stains in the parquet floor where, he said, there had been puddles of chemicals left behind by Mr. Haddad.

The fire in Apartment 603 began about 10:45 P.M., while one tenant was enjoying the moonlit night with his girlfriend on the roof and noticed thick clouds of smoke billowing over the rooftop. He ran downstairs to the guard station and told Mr. Mariano, who was on duty.

"I found the two men -- the man who said he was Moroccan and the man who said he was Pakistani -- outside the apartment door, trying to blow the smoke away," the guard recalled. "I asked to go into the apartment, but they said, no. They said the smoke was from firecrackers and they kept saying, 'Don't worry; we're just celebrating a late New Year's.' They didn't want me to call the police."

Mr. Mariano insisted on entering the smoke-filled apartment, where he found that the fire in the sink had coated it with a thick layer of a substance that looked like salt.

He said that the man who called himself Haddad walked downstairs and, as a fire engine pulled up, began walking away, talking into a cellular phone. Mr. Haddad was not seen again. Mr. Ahmed slipped away as well, climbing into a taxi in the midst of the commotion.

After questioning Mr. Mariano, the police entered the apartment. In the bedroom, they found the containers of acid and what appeared to be bomb-making equipment, as well as the laptop computer and disk.

When Mr. Ahmed returned later that evening, claiming that he wanted to remove some luggage, he was arrested, Mr. Mariano recalled. "He tried to run away, but he was caught very quickly."

Since the fire and the arrest, the guard said, Apartment 603 has received several official visits, including one by two F.B.I. agents who searched for fingerprints on Jan. 18.

While the F.B.I. and the Philippine authorities have refused to comment on whether fingerprints were found in the apartment, law-enforcement officials in Washington have confirmed that one of Mr. Yousef's fingerprints was identified.