TRAil of A TERRoRisT - Point Park University

New YorkPhotograph by Karen MeyersRevisitingthe Trail of aTerroristBy Kelli McElhinnyMarch 1973, a Palestinian terrorist group hatchedIn a plot to detonate car bombs outside of two Israelibank branch locations in Manhattan and at the El-Al airlineterminal at Kennedy International Airport in New York.Their plan fizzled, however, when faulty wiring thwarted theexplosions.Flyers retrieved from one of the cars implicated BlackSeptember, a group that also was responsible for the murderof Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, in the attack.The Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a warrant for aBlack September member known as Khalid Duhham al-Jawarishortly after the attack, but he became a fugitive and noperpetrators were taken into custody at the time.The case remained dormant until 1988, when a youngFBI agent who had been recently promoted to the New YorkPolice Department-FBI joint terrorism task force found its20 volumes of files on his desk one morning. That agent wasMichael Finnegan.“I honestly don’t think [the supervisor] assigned methe case to find him. I think he did it to make my lifeuncomfortable,” said Finnegan, who is now an assistantprofessor in the School of Arts and Sciences Department ofCriminal Justice and Intelligence Studies.Finnegan was up to the challenge. After re-interviewingsome 300 people who were originally questioned in thedays and weeks immediately following the plotted attack, he14 www.pointpark.edu