FRANKLIN, Mass. -- FBI agents and state police with dogs Wednesday searched the woods near an Armenian youth camp for more explosives where 130 pounds of stolen dynamite was found.
Police said the dynamite was stolen two years ago from the Chicago area and may possibly be a terrorist cache.
But local authorities said there was no apparent tie to the cache and its close proximity to Camp Hayastan, a youth camp operated by the Armenian Youth Federation of America. FBI agents refused any comment.
Armenian radicals have long waged an underground war around the world against Turkish targets to avenge the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I.
'We haven't tied it in with the camp,' said Franklin Police Chief Lawrence Benedetto. 'They (the camp directors) have been very cooperative. To suggest they're involved is unfair speculation.'
A Worcester hunter and his companion found the explosives during the weekend on heavily wooded town conservation land a few hundred yards away from the camp.
A police source said the dynamite contained enough blast power to rock a skyscraper off its foundation.
'When you're talking about a stick or two that's one thing,' he said. 'But with 130 pounds you know somebody's planning something.'
About 50 FBI agents backed by khaki-clad state police officers searched the woods and area around the camp Wednesday for more possible dynamite, but none was reported found.
Franklin officers were posted at the camp's entrances and would not allow people into the campgrounds.
Police said the explosives were stored in metal containers and plastic wrappers and were similar to blasting materials used in construction.
A spokesman for the Boston office of the FBI would only say the discovery of the explosives was under investigation, but he would not elaborate. The explosives were seized by state police, who were also involved in the investigation.
Residents of Franklin, a rural town of 18,000 about 30 miles southwest of Boston, said people often hunt pheasants and quail in the woods near the camp.
