Olympic bomber had planned more attacks, but says stabs of conscience stopped him

<p>It wasn't just what Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph confessed to doing, but what he confessed to almost doing that chilled Mark Thigpen.</p><p>More bombings. Planned attacks against government agents. A bomb intended for a North Carolina abortion clinic.</p><p>It was bad enough to Thigpen _ the police chief in Murphy, N.C., where Rudolph was caught after five years on the run _ that Rudolph had set off four bombs that killed two and injured more than 120.</p><p>When Rudolph admitted that he had planned many more attacks, and had stashed more than 200 pounds of dynamite in the North Carolina woods, Thigpen was stunned.</p><p>"We had no idea, no hints at all that his plans were that enormous," Thigpen said. "We were very fortunate that he didn't carry out more attacks."</p><p>Among the plans laid out in Rudolph's 11-page missive released after he pleaded guilty to the bombings, escaping a possible death sentence, were scarily ambitious plans for more violence.</p><p>Rudolph said he planned to set off five bombs, not one, at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. His aim, he said, was to "embarrass" the government on an international stage for allowing abortion. But after his first attack, which killed an Albany, Ga., mother, Rudolph said he felt remorse and abandoned the rest of his plan.</p><p>"After the blast and the consequent chaos, I decided to discontinue the operation," he wrote, saying he "left Atlanta with much remorse."</p><p>But Rudolph didn't stop his campaign of violence. He bombed a women's clinic in Atlanta and another in Birmingham, Ala. He also set off a bomb at a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta.</p><p>By the time Rudolph was forced into hiding in 1998, he turned his sights to targets near the woods where he hid. First he planned to use some of his remaining stash of dynamite to kill FBI agents searching for him. He set a bomb near their headquarters near Murphy. He spied on the agents to track their movements. But at the last minute, again he said conscience prevented an attack.</p><p>"Perhaps after watching them for so many months, their individual humanity shown through the hated uniform," he wrote. "Even though they served a morally bankrupt government, underneath their FBI rags, they were essentially fellow countrymen."</p><p>In the fall of 2000, Rudolph said he planned another bomb, this one at a women's clinic in Asheville, N.C., that provided abortions. This time, he said he had no second thoughts, but a crummy vehicle prevented him from carrying out his murderous design.</p><p>"The initial plan was to steal a truck ... and attack an abortion mill before the presidential election. The plan fell through when the truck used was not capable of driving 2 miles, let alone 200," he wrote.</p><p>So as Rudolph whiled away five years living in remote woods, he was also planning more attacks. Sometimes he backed down. Other times he failed. In any case, authorities say it was almost stunning that more weren't killed.</p><p>Under the plea agreement that will set him up for life in prison, Rudolph gave up the hiding places of all his bomb parts and 270 pounds of dynamite and other explosives. Last week, using directions Rudolph relayed through his lawyers, agents uncovered a total of five buried containers containing explosives or bomb-making tools and devices.</p><p>One of the containers was near an armory two miles outside of Murphy that agents used as a headquarters during the manhunt for Rudolph. The other four containers were less than 50 yards from roadways near the town of Unaka, 10 to 15 miles northwest of Murphy.</p><p>"We thank God that no one was hurt" by the dynamite Rudolph buried, said U.S. Attorney David Nahmias, who led negotiations for Rudolph's plea. "Until last week, part of North Carolina was literally a hidden mine field."</p><p>Codes on the dynamite matched that of explosives stolen from Austin Powder in Asheville, N.C., in 1996, before Rudolph's string of bombings. Agents have said the amount of dynamite recovered leads them to believe they now have accounted for all the explosives taken in that theft.</p><p>FBI agents who spent years tracking Rudolph said his terror could have been much worse if they hadn't kept up their search. As the years dragged on and agents remained in the mountains, residents openly called the search a lost cause.</p><p>Chris Swecker, who was head of the FBI in North Carolina when Rudolph was caught, said he was certain there would have been more attacks if not for the dogged pursuit.</p><p>"I can't imagine if we had pulled out of there," said Swecker, now an assistant director of the FBI.</p><p>The writings of Rudolph, and the dynamite found last week, proved his point, Swecker said. "It now justifies the huge force. ... We wanted to make sure he didn't do another bombing."</p><p>It was a rational fear, as it turned out. James Carafano, a security expert for the Heritage Foundation think tank and former professor at the U.S. Military Academy, said terrorists acting alone can be the most dangerous.</p><p>"These are the most difficult types of terrorist attacks to deal with, the lone wolf attacks," Carafano said. "They're really the kind of attacks that give us the most nightmares."</p>

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