NEW YORK -- Police removed a third pipe bomb from the Pan American airline terminal at Kennedy Airport Sunday, less than 24 hours after a terrorist bomb in the building killed an airport employee.
The bomb was left in a women's room, police said. It was removed by the New York City bomb squad and taken to a firing range for detonation.
A Puerto Rican terrorist group claimed responsibility Sunday for planting all three bombs and threatened to continue the bombing campaign, police said.
Port Authority Lt. Richard Richards said a man with a Hispanic accent called the New York Daily News Sunday afternoon claiming he was a member of the Puerto Rican Armed Resistance.
The caller said the group was an arm of the Puerto Rican terrorist group, FALN, and the bombings were 'to protest the imprisoned people being held in Chicago.'
Ten members of the FALN were convicted of terrorist activities in Chicago.
The caller said three bombs were planted in the terminal and that no more were set to explode, but he added, 'I may be by tonight.'
Richards said police 'feel the call may be factual, but he didn't say anything that the general public didn't know.'
The bomb found Sunday was the third one planted at the terminal in the past two days.
One of the bombs exploded in a men's room Saturday killing a 19-year-old Queens man who did odd jobs in the terminal. Police said the victim, Alex McMillan, absorbed the full impact of the blast.
'Everybody's jittery,' one police official at the airport said. 'If you put your lunch down, hey, it could be a bomb.'
A cleaning man found the bomb about 5 a.m. Sunday, shortly after Port Authoritypolice received an anonymous telephone call warning that two bombs were planted in the building, officials said.
The terminal was evacuated and several incoming flights were diverted away from the terminal while police used bomb sniffing dogs to search for other bombs. They found nothing and the terminal was reopened.
Officials described the device as a pipe bomb about seven inches long. They said no one has claimed responsibility for the unexploded bombs but added that the construction of the of the devices was 'similar.'
A group called the Puerto Rican Armed Resistance called United Press International to claim responsibility for Saturday's fatal bombing.
The group, whose political leanings are unknown to police, had previously claimed responsibility for two pipe bombs that exploded at Pennsylvania Station on Dec. 22. No one was injured in the Penn Station blast.
Pan Am officials said they did not know why thee terminal had been chosen as a target and admitted it is almost impossible to prevent bombs from being planted there.
'It's very, very, very tough. It's a public place and everyone is carrying bags and luggage. It's a very difficult task,' said James Arey, director of corporate relations for Pan Am.
Lt. Edwin Youngberg of the Port Authority police said, 'There really aren't many measures that can be taken to prevent a bomb from being planted.'
Pan Am reopened its terminal Sunday morning and began organizing travellers whose flights had been delayed by the bomb search.
Arey said only a handful of passengers canceled flights, and said the airline's staff 'is acting excellently. They're holding up.'
'It's got to be in the back of everyone's mind,' Youngberg said. 'It's been three bombs now.'
The fatal bomb blast took place at 9:40 a.m. Saturday. About 6:10 p.m., police said, a second bomb was found in front of gate No. 1 in the terminal's main lobby. The bomb was removed by police.
Also on Saturday, the bomb squad rushed the length of the terminal to check on a package left at gate 15. The bag, an attache case, was found to be harmless.
Later, the Trans World Airlines terminal was evacuated and closed for more than an hour after a man, in two telephone calls, threatened that a bomb would go off at the terminal at 8:30 p.m.
A spokeswoman for the Port Authority said the terminal was closed at 7:45 p.m. and reopened at 9 p.m. after Port Authority police and TWA officials searched the building and found no explosive devices.
She said the caller telephoned the TWA baggage service at 4:33 p.m. and later called 911, the police emergency number.
