Investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing

 
Eventhough the cause of the explosion was not originaly known and with some people suspecting that a main transformer had blown, agents as well as bomb technicians from the ATF, FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and the NYPD (New York City Police Department) all quickly responded to the scene of the explosion. Days after the explosion investigators started serveying the damage and looking for clues about what happened and who did it. A bomb technician found some internal component fragments from the vechicle that had delivered the 590kg (1,310-pound) bomb while combing through the public car park underneath the World Trade center, investigators also found a vechicle identification number (VIN) which was found on a piece of axle from the van, this was the crucial infomation that led them to a Ryder truck rental outlet in Jersey City. It was determind that the vechicle had been rented by Mohammad Salameh who was one of Ramzi Yousef's co-conspirators. The vechicle was reported stolen by Salameh who then returned on the 4th of March 1993 to get his deposit back, this was when he was arrested by the authorities. His arrest led police to the apartment of Abdul Rahman Yasin in Jersey City, New Jersey which Yasin was sharing with his mother, his apartment was in the same building as Ramzi Yousef's. Later Yasin was taken by the FBI to their Newark field office in Newark, New Jersey, he was then released. He flew back to Iraq, via Amman, Jordan. later on Yasin was indicated for the attack and in 2001 he was placed on the initial list of the FBI most wanted terrorists, he still remains on this list even in 2012.It was because of the capture of Salameh and Yasin that authorities found Ramzi Yousefs apartment in which they found bomb-making materials and a business card from Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. Khalifa was arrested on the 14th of December 1994 and was then deported to Jordan by the INS on May 5, 1995. In 2002 it was made public that Yasin who was the only person involving the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 who had never been caught by U.S. authorites, was being held as a prisoner on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq , he had been there since 1994. After being interviewed by Journalest Leslie Stahl for a segment on the TV program 60 minutes on the 23rd of May 2002 Yasin was never heard from again.

The 1993 World Trade Center Bombing

    
Ramzi Yousef and his friend Eyad Ismoil from Jordan drove a yellow Ryder van that they had hired into Lower Manhattan and pulled into the public car park beneath the World Trade Center at around noon on February 26th. Yousef and Ismoil got out of the van and then Yousef lit the 20 foot fuse of the bomb and fled. Twelve minutes later at 12:17 pm the bomb exploded in the public car park beneath the World Trade Center, it opened up a 30 meter wide whole through four sublevels of concreate and initial news reports thought that a main transformer had blown. Some of the effects of the explosion was that it cut off the World Trade Centers main electrical power line wich then knocked out the emergency lighting system as well, as a result of the explosion it caused smoke to rise up to the 93rd floors of both the North and South towers of the World Trade Center, this included the stairwells as well because they had not been pressurized when the buildings had been bilt. Hundreds of people got trapped in elevators when the buildings lost power including 17 kindergartners who were on their way down from the South Tower observation deck, they were trapped between the 35th and 36th floors for five hours. All together 1042 people were injured and six people were killed, they were Monica Smith age 35, Robert (Bob) Kirkpatrick, age 61, Bill Macko, age 47, Stephen Knapp, age 48, John DiGiovanni, age 45 and Wilfredo Mercado, age 37. Yousef's plan was to park the van in the right place  so that when the bomb exploded  the North tower would fall on to the South tower collapsing them both, but his plan failed because it only damaged the car park underneath the World Trade Center. It is thought that if Yousef had parked the van closer to the WTC's poured concrete foundations his plan might have succeeded, Ramzi Yousef escaped to Pakistan several hours after the bomb exploded. Yousef's fellow conspirator Mahmud Abouhalima later stated that their original plan was to attack the United Nations headquarters earlier in the morning, Author Simon Reeve theorized that something must have gone wrong such as Yousef encountering to much security so then the target was changed to the World Trade Center.

Planning of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing

    
Ramzi Yousef who was born as Abdul Basit Mahmoud Abdul Karim in Kuwait spent time at an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan before starting to plan a bombing attack within the United States of America in 1991. His uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed who is now considered the principal architect of the September 11 attacks in 2001 gave him advice and tips about making the bomb over the phone, his uncle also funded him with a $1,400 wire transfer. On September 1st 1992 Ramzi Yousef arrived illegally in the United States with his co conspirator Ahmed Ajaj from Pakistan. Ajaj tried to enter the country with a fake swedish passport but failed because it had been altered and when officials at John F. Kennedy International Airport put Ajaj through secondary inspection  they found bomb making instructions and other materials in his luggage, after that they arrested him. Yousef tried to enter with a fake Iraqi passport and tried to claim political asylum, he was allowed into the United States but was given a hearing date. Yousef set up residence on Nicole Pickett Avenue in Jersey City, New Jersey after that he traveled arround New York and New Jersey, then called a a blind Sheikh called Omar Abdel Rahman via cellphone. After being introduced to his fellow conspirators by Abdel Rahman at the Al-Farooq Mosque in Brooklyn New York hec stated making the 680kg urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced bomb that he would use to attack the North Tower in the hope of nocking over the South Tower killing thousands of people.

Ramzi Yousef's view of the Attack

Steve Coll a journalest said that Ramzi Yousef had mailed letters to various New York newspapers right before his attack on the world trade center, in the letter he said he was a belonged to 'Liberation Army, Fifth Battalion', he made three demands in these letters: an end to all US aid to Israel, an end to US diplomatic relations with Israel, and a pledge by the United States to end interference "with any of the Middle East countries' interior affairs." Yousef said that if his demands were not met the attack on the World Trade Center would just be the first of such attacks, he tried to justifie the attack by saying "the terrorism that Israel practices (which America supports) must be faced with a similar one."

1993 World Trade Center bombing

                                
The 1993 World Trade Center Bombing happened on Friday 26th of February. It happened when a truck bomb created by Ramzi Yousef and Abdul Rahman Yasin dentonated in a car park beneath the North Tower of the World Trade Center, what the two intended was for the truck bomb to nock the North Tower into the South Tower when it exploded killing thousands of people, it failed to do that but it did manage to kill about six people and injure more than one thousand others, it also opened a thirty meter wide whole through four sublevels of the North Tower. The attack was planned by Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammed A. Salameh, Nidal A. Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmed Ajaj. Khaled Sheikh Mohammed who was Yousef's uncle and who also helped plan the September 11 attacks in 2001 gave the group financing. Mahmud Abouhalima, Ahmed Ajaj, Nidal A. Ayyad and Mohammed A. Salameh were later convicted in March 1994 of carrying out the bombing of the World Trade Center, these charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property and interstate transportation of explosives. Ramzi Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were later convicted in 1997 4 years after the attacks. Some interesting facts about Eyad Ismoil is that he got sentenced to 240 years in prison, fined $250,000 and he had to pay $10,000,000 in restitution. The names of the six people that were killed are Monica Smith age 35, Robert (Bob) Kirkpatrick age 61, Bill Macko age 47, Stephen Knapp age 48, John DiGiovanni age 45 and Wilfredo Mercado age 37.

Memorials For The September 11 Attacks

                                                

In the days following the September 11 attacks there were many memorials and vigils that were held by people around the world, as well as that people posted photographs of the missing and dead around Ground Zero. One witness at the time described being unable to "get away from faces of innocent victims who were killed. Their pictures are everywhere, on phone booths, street lights, walls of subway stations. Everything reminded me of a huge funeral, people quiet and sad, but also very nice. Before, New York gave me a cold feeling; now people were reaching out to help each other.” The Tribute in Light wich was an instellation of 88 search lights at the footprints of the world trade centers twin towers was one of the first memorials that were set up in New York City. Also the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was held to design a memorial  on the World Trade Center site, the winning design done by Michael Arad and Peter Walker was chosen in August 2006. It consisted of a pair of reflecting pools in the footprints of the Twin Towers  this was surrounded by a list of the victims names who had died in the September 11 attacks and the February 26th 1993 attacks that would be in an underground memorial space. There was also the Pentagon memorial that was completed  and opened to the public on the 11th of September 2008 seven years after the attacks, it was made up of a landscaped park with 184 benches facing the Pentagon. A private chapel and indoor memorial were included and were located in the spot where flight 77 crashed when the Pentagon was repaired in 2001-2002. In Shanksville, Pennsylvania they are building a permanent memorial for United Airlines Flight 93 wich is going to include a sculpted grove of trees forming a circle around the crash site, bisected by the plane's path, while wind chimes will bear the names of the victims. There is a temporary memorial located about 457 meters (500 yards) away from the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93. on every anniversary of the September 11 attacks in New York City the names of the people who died are read out against a background of sad music. The President of the United States of America attends a memorial service that is in the Pentagon where they ask Americans to observe a moment of silence on patriot day. As well as New York City and the Pentagon there are smaller services held in Shanksville, Pennsylvania which the Presidents partner usually attends.

    

   

September 11 Attacks Conspiracy Theories

                
There have been many different conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks in 2001 some people like Michael Meacher a former British Environment Minister and member of former British Prime minister Tony Blair's cabnet believe that the United States of America had foreknowledge of the attacks but knowingly failed to stop them from happening, and author David Ray Griffin claimed that the 9/11 commission report "is constructed in support of one big lie: that the official story about 9/11 is true". Other conspiracy theorists claim that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) issued an order to stand down or scrambled Jet fighters to late so the hijacked planes from American Airlines and United Airlines could reach their targets unopposed, the website emperors-clothes.com believes that the U.S. military failed to do their job, Mark R. Elsis from StandDown.net also believed the theory that NORAD issued an order to stand down because he said "There is only one explanation for this .... Our Air Force was ordered to Stand Down on 9/11". Another one of the many theories was that Israeli agents had prior knowledge of the attacks, the FBI did arrest five Israelis who had been filming the aftermath from the roof of a white van that was in the parking lot of one of the apartment blocks, The Forward a Jewish magazine bassed in New York stated that the FBI had concluded that only two of the men that they arrested were Israeli agents, eventually the FBI concluded that the five Israelis that they had arrested had no prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks. Some more popular conspiracy theories are that the the world trade centers twin towers were destroyed by controlled demolitions, that United Airlines flight 93 wich crashed into a field in Pennsylvania was actually shot down by a missile, the four planes that were hijacked were actually remotely controlled, and another was that Al Qaida were not responsible for the september 11 attacks. Most if not all of these conspiracy theories have been disproved.