WASHINGTON, July 5: Americans marked their first Independence Day holiday since the Sept 11 attacks by hijacked airliners on Thursday amid a general sense of anxiety heightened by a shooting at Los Angeles International Airport in which three people, including the gunman, were killed.

News of the shooting spree at the Israeli airline El Al’s ticket counter in Los Angeles broke as thousands of Americans were waving flags and marching in parades in cities and towns across the country after President George W. Bush urged them to go out and celebrate.

In a show of unprecedented security, military jets patrolled the skies above major cities and thousands of police and security officials watched over crowds who turned out for fireworks displays, concerts and traditional events like New York’s annual Coney Island hot dog eating contest.

There was widespread unease after a string of government warnings that there could be more terror attacks, but for many a more immediate challenge was coping with a heat wave gripping Washington, New York and other cities.

In Los Angeles, an unidentified gunman walked up to the El Al ticket desk at the world’s third busiest airport and shot the counter clerk dead before turning his weapon on travelers waiting in line. He wounded four — one of whom later died — before El Al security agents shot and killed the assailant.

Neither the identity nor the nationality of the gunman was immediately known.

US officials said there was no evidence the shooting was related to terrorism but Israel reacted swiftly, saying it bore similarities to bloody 1985 attacks by Palestinian extremists near El Al counters at airports in Rome and Vienna.

“It seems like terrorism. It looks like terrorism,” Israel’s consul general in Los Angeles, Yuval Rotem, told a news conference. “The way it was conducted was very much similar to previous attacks at El Al counters throughout European countries. And therefore given this history we presume that it may be, and would appear to be, a terrorist attack.”

“We believe we are talking about a terrorist attack,” Israeli Transport Minister Efraim Sneh said.—Reuters