World Trade Center Bombing

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For the second attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, see September 11, 2001 attacks.
World Trade Center bombing
World Trade Center bombing
The aftermath of the bombing
Location New York City, New York
Target(s) World Trade Center
Date February 26, 1993


12:17pm (UTC-5)
Attack Type car bombing; attempted release of sodium cyanide
Fatalities 6
Injuries 1,042
Perpetrator(s) Islamist terrorists, notably Ramzi Yousef
Motive allegedly, American aid to Israel and involvement in the Middle East

In the World Trade Center bombing (February 26, 1993) a car bomb was detonated by Arab Islamist terrorists in the underground parking garage below Tower One of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,500-lb urea nitrate-fuel oil device killed six and injured 1,042 people. It was intended to devastate the foundation of the North Tower, causing it to collapse onto its twin.

The attack was planned by a group of conspirators including Ramzi Yousef, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, El Sayyid Nosair, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Ahmad Ajaj, and Abdul Rahman Yasin. They received financing from al-Qaeda member Khaled Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef's uncle.

The bomb exploded in the underground garage at 12:17 P.M., generating a pressure estimated over one GPa and opening a 30-meter-wide hole through four sublevels of concrete. The detonation velocity of this bomb was about 15,000 ft/s (4.5 km/s). The cyanide gas generated is assumed to have burned in the explosion.

In October 1995, the militant Islamist and blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, was sentenced to life imprisonment for masterminding the bombing. In 1998, Ramzi Yousef was convicted of "seditious conspiracy" to bomb the towers. In all, ten militant Islamist conspirators were convicted for their part in the bombing, each receiving prison sentences of a maximum of 240 years.

Contents

[edit] Planning and organization

Ramzi Yousef, born in Kuwait, began in 1991 to plan a bombing attack within the United States. Yousef's uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who later was considered "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks," gave him advice and tips over the phone, and funded him with a US$660 wire transfer.[1]

Yousef entered the United States with a false Iraqi passport in 1992. Police found instructions on making a bomb in Yousef's partner's luggage. The name Abu Barra, an alias of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, appeared in the manuals. Yousef's partner was arrested on the spot for his false passport and his bombmaking instructions. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) holding cells were overcrowded, and Yousef, claiming political asylum, was given a hearing date.

Yousef set up residence on Nicole Pickett Avenue in Jersey City, New Jersey, traveled around New York and New Jersey and called Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, a controversial Muslim cleric, via cell phone. After being introduced to his co-conspirators by Abdel-Rahman at the latter's Al-Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn, Yousef began assembling the 1,500-lb urea nitrate-fuel oil device for delivery to WTC. He ordered chemicals from his hospital room when injured in a car crash - one of three accidents caused by Salameh in late 1992 and early in 1993.

El Sayyid Nosair, one of the Blind Sheikh's men who would later be convicted for the bombing, was arrested in 1991 for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane. According to prosecutors, "the Red" Mahmud Abouhalima, also convicted in the bombing, told Wadih el Hage to buy the .38 caliber revolver used by Nosair in the Kahane shooting. Nosair was acquitted of murder but convicted of gun charges. Dozens of Arabic bomb-making manuals and documents related to terrorist plots were found in Nosair's New Jersey apartment, with manuals from Army Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, secret memos linked to Joint Chiefs of Staff, and 1440 rounds of ammunition. (Lance 2004 26 )

[edit] Bomb characteristics

Yousef was assisted by Iraqi bomb maker Abdul Rahman Yasin [1] . Yasin's complex 1310 lb (600 kg) bomb was made of urea pellets, nitroglycerin, sulfuric acid, aluminum azide, magnesium azide, and bottled hydrogen. He added sodium cyanide to the mix as the vapors could go through the ventilation shafts and elevators of the towers.

The Ryder van used in the bombing had 295 ft³ (8.3 m³) of space, which would hold up to a ton (907 kg) of explosives. However, the van was not filled to capacity. Yousef used four 20 ft (6 m) long fuses, all covered in surgical tubing. Yasin calculated that the fuse would trigger the bomb in twelve minutes after he had used a cigarette lighter to light the fuse.

Yousef wanted the smoke to remain in the tower, therefore catching the public eye by smothering people inside, killing them slowly. He anticipated Tower One collapsing onto Tower Two after the blast. The materials to build the bomb cost approximately US$129[citation needed].

[edit] Yousef's view of the attack

According to the journalist Steve Coll, Yousef mailed letters to various New York newspapers just before the attack, in which he claimed he belonged to the 'Liberation Army, Fifth Battalion'.[2] These letters made three demands: an end to all US aid to Israel, an end to US diplomatic relations with Israel, and a demand for a pledge by the United States to end interference "with any of the Middle East countries (sic) interior affairs." He stated that the attack on the World Trade Center would be merely the first of such attacks if his demands were not met. In his letters Yousef admitted that the World Trade Center bombing was an act of terrorism, but that this was justified because 'the terrorism that Israel practices (which America supports) must be faced with a similar one.'

[edit] The attack

The bomb exploded in the underground garage at 12:17 P.M., generating a pressure estimated over one GPa and opening a 30-meter-wide hole through four sublevels of concrete. The detonation velocity of this bomb was about 15,000 ft/s (4.5 km/s). The cyanide gas generated is assumed to have burned in the explosion.

Six people were killed. At least 1,040 others were injured. However, the towers were not destroyed as Yousef intended. Yousef escaped to Pakistan several hours later.

The bomb cut off the center's main electrical power line and cut off telephone service for much of lower Manhattan. The bomb caused smoke to rise up to the 93rd floor of both towers, and cut off the towers' four stairwells and emergency lighting system. Also as a result of the loss of electricity most of New York City's radio and television stations lost their over-the-air broadcast signal for almost a week, with television stations only being able to broadcast via cable and satellite via a microwave hookup between the stations and three of the New York area's largest cable companies, Cablevision, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable.

[edit] List of deaths

[edit] Aftermath and arrests

Agents and bomb technicians of the U. S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) responded to the scene of the blast. An ATF bomb technician subsequently found the axle in the bomb crater with the VIN number of the Ryder truck that was used to contain the explosives. Further investigation by ATF found that the vehicle had been rented by a Palestinian named Mohammad Salameh. Yousef's friends reported the van was stolen in an attempt to slow investigators down.

On March 4, 1993 authorities announced the capture of Salameh. In May 1994, Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima and Ahmad Ajaj were each convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the World Trade Center bombing.

In a sweep the same day, Salameh's arrest led to the apartment of Abdul Rahman Yasin in Jersey City, New Jersey, which Yasin was sharing with his mother, in the same building as Ramzi Yousef's apartment. Yasin was taken to FBI headquarters in Newark, New Jersey, and was then released. The next day, he flew back to Iraq, via Amman, Jordan. Yasin was later indicted for the attack, and eventually in 2001 he was placed on the initial list of the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, on which he remains a fugitive today. He disappeared prior to 2003's U.S. coalition invasion in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The capture of Salameh and Yasin led authorities to Ramzi Yousef's apartment, where they found bomb-making materials and a business card from Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. Khalifa was arrested in relation to the crime on December 14, 1994, and was deported to Jordan by the INS on May 5, 1995. He was acquitted by a Jordanian court and now lives as a free man in Saudi Arabia.

[edit] Impact and prosecutions

Despite its relatively low death toll, the bombing shocked the American public. According to testimony in the bomb trial, only once before the 1993 attack had the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recorded a bomb that used urea nitrate [2]. [3] The FBI has recorded a total of about 73,000 explosions.

In October 1995, the militant Islamist and blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who preached at mosques in Brooklyn and Jersey City, was sentenced to life imprisonment for masterminding the bombing. Rahman, whose Islamic Group organization is believed to have had links to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, was later convicted with a number of others of conspiracy charges to bomb several New York City landmarks (see New York City landmark bomb plot). In 1998, Ramzi Yousef, said by some to have been the real mastermind, was convicted of "seditious conspiracy" to bomb the towers. When Ramzi Yousef was brought back to America, he was flown over the still intact twin towers, making a statement to the FBI that he regretted not having enough explosives to bring down the WTC towers and adding that his fellow terrorists would try again to destroy them. One of the other men tried alongside Yousef for the bombing was Eyad Ismail. In all, ten militant Islamist conspirators – including Ramzi Yousef – were convicted for their part in the bombing and were given prison sentences of a maximum of 240 years each.

[edit] Memorial

A granite memorial fountain honoring the six victims of the bombing was designed by Elyn Zimmerman and dedicated in 1995 on Austin J. Tobin Plaza, directly above the site of the explosion. It contained the names of the six people who perished in the attack as well as an inscription that read:

"On February 26, 1993, a bomb set by terrorists exploded below this site. This horrible act of violence killed innocent people, injured thousands, and made victims of us all."

The fountain was destroyed during the September 11, 2001 attacks. A recovered fragment from the 1993 bombing memorial with the word "John" is being used as the centerpiece of a new memorial honoring the victims of the 2001 attack.

[edit] Allegations of FBI foreknowledge

In the course of the trial it was revealed that the FBI had an informant, a former Egyptian army officer named Emad A. Salem. Salem claims to have informed the FBI of the plot to bomb the towers as early as February 6, 1992. Salem's role as informant allowed the FBI to quickly pinpoint the conspirators out of the hundreds of possible suspects.

Salem, initially believing that this was to be a sting operation, claimed that the FBI's original plan was for Salem to supply the conspirators with a harmless powder instead of actual explosive to build their bomb, but that the FBI chose to use him for other purposes instead. [4] He secretly recorded hundreds of hours of telephone conversations with his FBI handlers; reported by Ralph Blumenthal in the New York Times, Oct. 28, 1993, secton A,Page 1.

In December 1993, James M. Fox, the head of the FBI's New York Office, denied that the FBI had any foreknowledge of the attacks.[citation needed] The 1993 WTC sting operation was depicted as a false flag operation and was a plot device for the 1996 movie The Long Kiss Goodnight with Geena Davis.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/ksm.htm
  2. ^ Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, The Penguin Press HC, 2004. ISBN 1594200076.
  3. ^ Alternate link: If you get a 403 server error, try this link and then click on the link for "Page 16335".
  4. ^ Blumenthal, Ralph. "Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast", New York Times, p. Section A, Page 1, Column 4.

[edit] Further reading

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