Fbi Forms Task Force On Terrorism Incidents In Region Spawn Three-State Group

A special domestic terrorism task force is being formed by the FBI in Eastern Washington, North Idaho and Montana.

The task force will track anti-government and white supremacy groups that have spawned terrorism over the past 16 years in the region.

At least three dozen federal, state and local officers from the three states will participate, authorities say.

The agents and officers must sign an FBI secrecy oath, making most of them reluctant to discuss their involvement or even the existence of the new group.

But the task force was confirmed last week by Burdena Pasenelli and David M. Tubbs, special agents in charge of FBI division offices in Seattle and Salt Lake City.

Both divisions are involved in the group, which was approved by the FBI’s assistant director for national security.

“This is the first time in the history of the FBI that two field offices have come together to form a task force to look at an ongoing criminal problem,” Pasenelli said.

It means an FBI agent in Coeur d’Alene working on a terrorism investigation won’t have to get a supervisor’s permission to call an FBI agent in Spokane, 35 miles away.

The task force is being formed after the recent assignment of additional FBI agents to Spokane and Coeur d’Alene.

Coeur d’Alene, which had one FBI agent in 1984, now has seven agents. Spokane, which had five agents a decade ago, has almost a dozen.

Some agents are exclusively assigned to terrorism investigations and white-collar crime.

They are part of 500 new FBI agents funded by Congress after the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

“This task force is modeled after other FBI task forces that have worked effectively elsewhere in the United States,” Pasenelli said.

There are at least 16 other FBI terrorism task forces, but none of them comes under two FBI regional offices.

Spokane County Sheriff John Goldman and Police Chief Alan Chertok said their departments are participating in the new group.

“It’s already had some success in averting what might have had the potential of becoming a tragic event,” Goldman said. He wouldn’t elaborate.

Kootenai County sheriff’s officials wouldn’t say whether they are participating, but it is believed they are involved.

Plans for the task force were discussed at a closed-door meeting of select law enforcement officials this fall at The Coeur d’Alene Resort.

Jim Connelly, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, was among those who attended.

“It’s something that’s investigative in nature,” Connelly said, “and it’s too early for me to comment on it.”

The task force was formed about the time Chertok became Spokane’s new police chief. He, too, wouldn’t discuss particulars.

The task force will use FBI offices in Spokane, Coeur d’Alene and Helena, and a network of federal, state and local officers who share information.

“The sharing of information has already yielded positive results,” Pasenelli said.

Agents and officers will use a sophisticated computer network that will be bought and installed by the FBI.

The local computer system presumably will be linked to the FBI’s computer database known as the Terrorist Information System. It contains information on more than 200,000 individuals and 3,000 organizations, according to the Center for National Security Studies.

Tubbs couldn’t provide an estimate of start-up costs, but said the FBI likely will spend $100,000 a year for the task force.

Tubbs said it’s only logical to form the task force because of several previous terrorism-related investigations in the Inland Northwest.

In the mid-1980s, a neo-Nazi terrorist group known as The Order was formed in a cabin in Metaline Falls, Wash., after its members met at the Aryan Nations in North Idaho.

In 1996, another group of North Idaho terrorists, who called themselves Phineas Priests, detonated bombs and robbed banks in Spokane. They met at America’s Promise Ministry, a Christian Identity church in Sandpoint.

And last year, a group calling itself the Aryan People’s Republic was arrested for crimes stretching from Eastern Washington to a white supremacy enclave in Oklahoma.

Its leader, Chevie Kehoe, is accused of bombing Spokane’s City Hall and is linked to five murders.

One FBI official said he’s glad the task force will be in place next year. “With the coming of the millennium, an increase in domestic terrorism is something that concerns us nationwide,” the agent said.

The new task force breaks regional barriers between FBI offices in Seattle and Salt Lake City.

The Seattle Division supervises FBI operations throughout Washington, including Spokane. The Salt Lake City Division supervises FBI operations in Utah, Montana and Idaho.

In one case, FBI agents in Spokane initially didn’t know their counterparts in Coeur d’Alene were investigating bombing and counterfeit suspects with ties to the Aryan Nations.

Coeur d’Alene agents routed their reports through their headquarters in Salt Lake, where a supervisor would alert a supervisor in Seattle who would then notify FBI agents in Spokane.

Sometimes, the bureaucratic runaround took days, and valuable investigative time was lost in the process.

This sidebar appeared with the story: DOMESTIC TERRORISM There were three acts of domestic terrorism in the United States in 1996, the most recent reporting period for the FBI. Two of those acts occurred in Spokane, where members of a militia group twice bombed buildings and robbed banks. Four men were convicted of the crimes. In the third case, a pipe bomb explosion at the Olympics in Atlanta killed two people. Fugitive Eric Rudolph is wanted for that crime.