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| Sunday, 7 July 2002 |
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LA gunman phoned home for birthday before attack CAIRO, July 5 (Reuters) - An Egyptian gunman, who killed two people at the Los Angeles airport, celebrated his birthday with a telephone call to his family on the day of the attack, a relative said on Friday. The family knew of no links between Islamic militants and Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, 41, who was shot dead on Thursday after he opened fire at the ticket counter of Israel's El Al Airlines. "He called his father in the morning and told him 'I knew you would try to call me to say happy birthday so I called you instead'," Hadayet's uncle Mohamed Abdel-Hafiz told Reuters. The shooting at Los Angeles International Airport came amid heightened U.S. security for the first Independence Day holiday since the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York. But Abdel-Hafiz said Hadayet, whose father was a former Egyptian army officer, had no links to Islamic militants. "No, he is very normal exactly like every good Muslim and good Christian...he prays normally, like me and like his father". Israel immediately called the shooting a "terrorist" attack but FBI officials said it appeared to a be "an isolated incident". Egyptian police sources said security officers had earlier questioned members of Hadayet's immediate family in Cairo. Hadayet's wife and two children are visiting Egypt. Hadayet had lived in the United States since 1992 and worked as a limousine driver, police said. Many Egyptian Islamic militants are believed to be leaders of the al Qaeda network which Washington blames for the September 11 attacks. |
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