Bombs In New Jersey and Naples

To State Trooper Robert Cieplensky, the motorist at a rest area along the New Jersey Turnpike acted strangely. He circled his car several times, peered under it and into several trash cans. Then, apparently sighting the police car, he sped recklessly away. The officer flashed his warning lights, and the driver stopped. Looking into the auto, Cieplensky spotted six canisters protruding from a nylon flight bag on the back seat. Some were labeled BLACK POWDER. The trooper was even more astonished at what he found on the floor: three high-power pipe bombs contained in red fire-extinguisher cases.

The officer's alertness led to the arrest of Yu Kikumura, 35, a native of & Japan traveling on a stolen Japanese passport. Each of the 18-in. by 4-in. bombs was packed with black powder and lead shotgun pellets; they were designed to attack humans rather than property. "If fired at a gathering of people," said U.S. Attorney Samuel Alito in Newark, "the devices could cause a real massacre."

Two days later in Naples, Italy, a Ford Fiesta disintegrated in a fiery explosion next to a USO club one block from the docks used by the U.S. Sixth Fleet. Inside, shielded by their basement location, sailors from the U.S. Navy frigate Paul were throwing a party. Five people outside the club were killed, including U.S. Navy Petty Officer Angela Santos, 21, who was stationed in Naples. Fifteen were wounded.

Naples police traced the rental car to Junzo Okudaira, 39, a notorious member of the Japanese Red Army, a terrorist organization with ties to radical groups in Lebanon. Witnesses said a man resembling Okudaira drove the car past the USO club several times looking for a parking spot. When he found one, he left the auto in a hurry. Shortly afterward it exploded. A Japanese woman accomplice was also being sought.

FBI explosive experts flew to Italy to see if the bombs in New Jersey and the blast in Naples were connected. The Naples suspect, Okudaira, was sought for a similar car-bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in Rome last June while President Reagan was attending a seven-nation economic summit in Venice. Okudaira's organization is believed to have trained in Lebanon with Islamic Jihad, a Shi'ite Muslim group with ties to Iran. Responsibility for the Naples explosion was claimed by various factions of Islamic Jihad, one saying the attack was in retribution for the U.S. air assault on Libya two years ago.

The FBI suspects that the New Jersey bomb carrier, Kikumura, may also be a member of the Japanese Red Army. He was arrested in May 1986 while carrying explosives in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, but the case against him was dismissed for technical reasons. Antiterrorist experts in both Italy and the U.S. theorize that Kikumura may have been heading to Washington, where world finance ministers were meeting last week. Others thought he may have been awaiting the June economic summit conference in Toronto.