FBI Mum on Source of LAX Shooter's Guns
While maintaining there is no evidence connecting July Fourth LAX shooter Hesham Mohamed Hedayat to any larger terrorist plot, the FBI has been silent on the origin of the guns he used in the attack.
Hedayat was armed with a .45-caliber semiautomatic Glock pistol and a 9mm handgun when he fired nearly a dozen times at people working at LAX's El Al airline ticket counter, killing two and wounding four others.
"The FBI could have easily traced those guns by now," complained WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg on Sunday.
"But they're not telling us how he got the guns or whose guns they were," the radio host added. "Why not? Were they his guns?"
Four days after Hedayat's attack, there has been little reporting on the small arsenal carried by the Egyptian national into LAX - although the origin of the weapon used in any attack is usually considered a key component of a shooting investigation.
If the LAX shooter's guns were obtained from outside sources, it could blow a hole in the FBI's theory that Hedayat acted alone.
Citing a report in the Arabic language newspaper Al-Hayat, the Israeli news service Ha'aretz reported Sunday that the LAX gunman may have have had two meetings in the U.S. with a top deputy to Osama bin Laden.
"Authorities were checking whether Hedayat had met with Ayman Al-Zawahiri in 1995 and again in 1998, while the latter was head of the Al-Jihad organization in Egypt," Ha'aretz said.
Listen to WABC Radio's Steve Malzberg 9 a.m. to 12 noon ET Sundays, and with Richard Bey on "The Buzz," 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET weekdays.
