Law enforcement authorities warned the Israeli Consulate and California National Guard that their facilities were on a list of possible terror targets that police found recently while investigating a string of robberies, officials said Friday.
``We're very concerned about it,'' said Maj. Jon Siepmann, the California National Guard's deputy director of communications. ``There was evidence that an attack was at least being planned.''
The list, which police found while searching the home of a man arrested last week in connection with a series of gas station robberies in south Santa Monica Bay communities, included three National Guard facilities in the greater Los Angeles area, Siepmann said. He said law enforcement authorities thoroughly briefed National Guard representatives on the possible threat, which he described as apparently ``very serious.''
Siepmann declined to discuss specifics of the case or which National Guard facilities were possible targets. He said the National Guard has strong security measures in place because its soldiers have been involved in anti-terror operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Asia. About 12,000 of the California Guard's 20,000 soldiers have been mobilized and deployed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he said.
The warnings followed the July 5 arrests by Torrance police of Gregory Vernon Patterson, 21, of Gardena, and Levar Haney Washington, 25, of Los Angeles, on suspicion of robbery. Both men pleaded not guilty to the charges in Torrance Superior Court.
FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller confirmed last week that the agency's Joint Terrorism Task Force was investigating the case, but declined to describe the focus of the probe or provide other details.
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