Paper Says FBI Blocked Plan To Foil N.Y. Blast

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Law enforcement offlcials planned to thwart the bombing of the World Trade Center by substituting harmless powder for explosives, but the scheme was called off by the FBl, a newspaper reported today.

Tape recordings secretly made by an FBI informer reveal that authorities were in a far better position than previously known to foil the Feb. 26 bombing of New York's tallest towers, the New York Times reported.

Four men are now on trial for carrying out that bombing, in which six died and more than 1,000 were injured.

The New York Times published conversations the informer, a 43 year-old former Egyptian army officer, Emad Ali Salem, taped with his FBI handlers.

On the tapes, Salem recalls that the FBI had planned on "building the bomb with a phony powder and grabbing the people who were involved in it."

But the informer. who is heard lecturing his handlers, said the powder scheme was called off and "we didn't do that."

Salem also is heard on the tapes criticizing the agents for ignoring his warnings that the World Trade Center was to be bombed.

"Guys, now you saw this bomb went off and you both know that we could avoid that," the newspaper quoted him as saying.