2 Men's Ties to Group of Extremists Investigated

Although there is no evidence of a specific terrorist plot, law enforcement officials say materials recovered at the South Los Angeles apartment of one robbery suspect, Levar Haney Washington, 25, suggest that an attack might have been planned at any of nearly two dozen addresses, including National Guard recruiting facilities, two synagogues and a building believed to be the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles.

During an extensive search of Washington's apartment last week, authorities said they found no explosives or bomb-making materials, but did recover some bulletproof vests and undisclosed "jihadist" materials not readily available via the Internet or other public sources, as well as the list of addresses that appeared to be unlikely targets for a simple robbery.

Washington, a Rollin' 60s gang member who was convicted in Orange County in 1999 of assault with a deadly weapon, robbery and belonging to a street gang, converted to Islam in prison. His alleged accomplice, Gregory Vernon Patterson, 21, who has no criminal record, is believed to be a more recent convert.

For several years, the FBI and other federal agencies have been investigating prison gangs to determine what role, if any, they are playing in converting prisoners to radical interpretations of Islam.

Raising investigators' suspicions was their discovery that Patterson, until recently, worked at a duty-free gift shop at Los Angeles International Airport's Tom Bradley International Terminal, where another possible target on the list, El Al Israel Airlines, has its ticket counter.

Patterson, who worked at the airport shop for about six months, left the job early this year. Sources said there was no evidence that he was at the airport to survey it as a possible target.

Instead, they said they are investigating his time at LAX because the airport has long been known as a terrorist target and the El Al ticket counter was the site of a July 4, 2002, rampage in which an Egyptian immigrant shot and killed two bystanders.

A week after the FBI confirmed that its Joint Terrorism Task Force was investigating the two Muslim converts for possible links to extremism, authorities emphasized Thursday that the fast-moving investigation was still in its early stages.