Bomb threat empties campus during midterm exams.

 

A telephoned bomb threat to New Mexico State University early Thursday morning forced the evacuation of much of the campus, and a similar call to the Las Cruces Sun-News emptied the paper and led to a lockdown of nearby Central Elementary School, the Sun-News reported today on its Web site.

No explosives were found, but Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesman Bill Elwell said the agency was treating the incidents as a "possible terrorist threat," saying the FBI would use "whatever methods they can to to see who in fact was calling and whether it was a hoax or in fact a credible threat."

A man with what was described as an Arabic accent called the NMSU president's office around 8 a.m. Thursday and said a bomb was going to explode on campus at 9:30 a.m., the paper reported.

A similar call to the Sun-News threatened the newspaper and also said a bomb would go off on the NMSU campus "so people would know that al-Qaida lives on," the Sun-News reported.

That's what brought in the FBI and forced the evacuation of the campus, the newspaper and the lockdown of Central Elementary, according to the paper.

At NMSU, where midterm examinations were under way, thousands of students, faculty and staff left the campus en masse until local police began reopening buildings around 11:15 a.m. and students were allowed to return at 1 p.m., the paper reported.

The newspaper and the elementary school reopened around 10 a.m.

"We will always err on the side of protecting human life," NMSU president Michael Martin told the paper. "This is now in the hands of the authorities. We are collaborating and cooperating in every way possible."

NMSU attorney Bruce Kite told the Sun-News that the caller, whose threat was put on a speaker phone in the president's office, sounded like a middle-aged man with an Arabic accent.

The receptionist who took the call at the Sun-News said the caller there also had an Arabic accent but sounded like someone in his late 20s or early 30s, the paper reported.

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