Nationwide FBI Alert Disproves Fuel Bomb Tip
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WASHINGTON — Fearing that another Oklahoma City-like bombing was in the planning stage, the FBI issued a rare nationwide alert Monday for a rental truck believed to be loaded with the same diesel fuel and fertilizer ingredients that produced the 1995 explosion that killed 168 people.
But a federal law enforcement source said hours later: “We believe we have located the truck, and it contained only baking soda pellets, which are innocuous.”
The FBI had cited a report from local police, who said informants had told of seeing two white men at a gasoline station Saturday loading 30 gallons of diesel fuel and about 2 tons of ammonium nitrate into a U-Haul trailer in Haltom City, Texas, near Fort Worth.
It was a Ryder rental truck that carried the massive bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995.
FBI officials said they feared that anti-government activists might be planning to mark the fourth anniversary on Friday of the government’s raid on a cult compound near Waco, Texas, with an act of domestic terrorism.
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