CRIME > Unlikely Candidate for Car Bomber

LATIMES.COM: The airport worker enjoyed Hollywood's club scene. His hand was found chained to the steering wheel in Iraq's deadliest attack.

There was nothing like it in Jordan, Raed Mansour Albanna told his American friend. They were in a Hollywood club and — fueled with beer and shots of Jagermeister — Albanna was dancing with abandon. The pounding music was liberating and the young Muslim was on his game.

It was a few months before 9/11, and Albanna had left the constraints of his Islamic country far behind. In America, friends said, he had found what he was looking for — sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.

He was into partying. We hit some pretty wild clubs in Hollywood," said Steve Gray, who worked with Albanna at Ontario International Airport and considered him a close friend.

Albanna, 32, had a fondness for American women, the grunge sound of Nirvana and Harley-Davidson motorcycles and the bad-boy image they conveyed. He told friends he loved the freedom he felt in America.

All the more reason his friends were dumbfounded when they were told that the funloving Jordanian had become a suicide car bomber, pulling off the deadliest single attack in Iraq. U.S. authorities said he killed 132 Iraqis outside a Hillah medical clinic Feb. 28, 2005.

A hand chained to a steering wheel revealed fingerprints that identified him as the bomber. It was the only body part that remained.

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