|
03/07/93
Agency says tips on sect point to holy war; Public likely to be `stunned' by what may be in compound, official says
By Lee Hancock / The Dallas Morning News
WACO-The tips came in bits and pieces: a diplomatic cable warning of an impending bloodbath, a deliveryman's description of grenades spilling from boxes sent to a fortified compound, a gun dealer's boasts of new clients with an endless appetite for assault weapons.
Beginning last June, federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents began compiling an increasingly alarming picture of what lay beyond the high walls of the Branch Davidian compound. Authorities were told of a millennialist cult blindly loyal to a self-proclaimed prophet who talked of unleashing his doomsday arsenal on local police, the surrounding community or his own followers.
Even as the standoff with the sect enters its second week, federal officials say dozens of new leads suggest that David Koresh was planning an apocalyptic holy war, assembling enough firepower to hold more than 100 federal agents at bay.
"I think some people are going to be stunned at the pile of stuff we finally take out of there,' said an ATF official, who requested anonymity. "The information we're getting now suggests there's a lot more in there than even we suspected.'
On Saturday, federal authorities said negotiations with Mr. Koresh were continuing. One of Mr. Koresh's followers asked officials to remove a body from the compound Friday, and authorities say they are considering that request.
The 33-year-old leader has refused to discuss releasing more children, and authorities fear that he may be holding some adults inside the compound against their will.
As of Saturday, 21 children and two women had been released from the compound, and reports from Mr. Koresh suggest that 107 men, women and children remain inside. Mr. Koresh has repeatedly denied any interest in forcing his followers to kill themselves.
In the last day, authorities said, negotiations have slightly shifted to discussions of how Mr. Koresh and his followers will be treated if they surrender.
"He understands very well what charges are facing him,' said Bob A. Ricks, special agent in charge of the FBI's Oklahoma City office. "What we have dealt with is the (surrender) process itself.'
Agent Ricks also emphasized that Mr. Koresh will not be in personal danger, addressing the cult leader's fears while indirectly acknowledging federal officials' acute awareness that Mr. Koresh is monitoring every televised report and official briefing on the standoff.
"If he is listening, we want to give him and his followers our assurance that he and everyone inside will be treated fairly and humanely if they come out,' Agent Ricks said.
Inquiry begins
The ATF official said the agency began formally investigating the cult last June after receiving reports from sources as diverse as the U.S. State Department and the McLennan County Sheriff's Department that the Davidians were arming themselves for Armageddon.
Last April, other federal officials say, the U.S. consulate in Australia cabled information warning that the cult was contemplating mass suicide and intended to kill any authorities who intruded on their property.
McLennan County sheriff's deputies and other local law enforcement officials forwarded reports suggesting that the group was conducting military exercises and amassing a massive arsenal by mail.
From the county sheriff, said the ATF official, authorities learned that a United Parcel Service deliveryman had begun reporting potential problems from the cult after a box he was delivering to the cult broke open and disgorged dozens of fragment grenade casings.
From local sources, federal investigators also began hearing about Henry McMahon, a Florida man who had set up his own gun business in nearby Hewitt after moving to Waco about a year and a half ago.
Mr. McMahon bragged of selling dozens of AK-47s and AR-15s, the civilian version of the M-16 assault rifle, to Mr. Koresh and his followers.
Another area gun dealer said many Hewitt residents wondered about the Floridian because he appeared out of nowhere to begin a brisk business in guns out of his girlfriend's Hewitt home.
"Then in January, he just mysteriously disappeared back to Florida.
Since he left I've had customers telling us he was trying to recruit them for that cult . . . We knew he was selling to those people, and we kept hearing they were converting the weapons to automatic after they'd buy them.'
The ATF official said Mr. McMahon, who has moved back to Pensacola, has been questioned extensively by federal agents in recent months but is not in federal custody and has not been charged with a crime.
Other acquisitions
By monitoring additional shipments to the 77-acre Davidian compound, federal agents learned of more disturbing acquisitions: a massive array of chemicals, gunpowder and other propellants commonly used in making homemade explosives, grenades and bombs.
"We identified persons with knowledge that would enable them to build bombs and explosives,' who were members or were assisting the cult, the ATF official said.
Cult members also were amassing instruction books detailing how to convert arms to automatic weapons, the official said, adding, "They were moving in what I would have to describe as very aggressively in the latter part of 1992 to acquire material and knowledge.'
Mr. Koresh also seemed to be interested in unleashing Armageddon from his small, rural compound, the ATF official said.
"They were involved in discussions of violent activity . . .
Sometimes they would talk of violence toward the community (of Waco), sometimes toward law enforcement officials, sometimes toward themselves.'
The cult's growing extremism prompted officials to plan a surgical strike aimed at surprising Mr. Koresh's followers and overwhelming the compound.
Weeks before the raid, they began drilling with U.S. Army special forces units in specially built mockups of the compound constructed at nearby Fort Hood, federal officials said.
Although felony warrants were pending against "a number of individuals' connected with the cult, ATF associate director Dan Harnett said, the assault teams decided to focus only on taking Mr. Koresh into custody and gaining control of the compound's massive arsenal.
But none of the assault teams' planning could prepare for a still unexplained telephone call that tipped the group off to the coming raid, he said.
Authorities say they are still investigating who may have called Mr. Koresh within an hour of the raid to warn him that federal agents were about to descend. The result was a horrific, 45-minute bloodbath that left four federal agents and three cult members dead.
|
Back to Top
