1993 World Trade Center bombing
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack carried out on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. The 1,336 lb (606 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device[1] was intended to send the North Tower crashing into its twin, the South Tower, taking down both skyscrapers and killing tens of thousands of people. While it failed to do so, it killed six people, including a pregnant woman,[2] and caused over a thousand injuries.[3] About 50,000 people were evacuated from the buildings that day.[4][5]
1993 World Trade Center bombing
February 26, 1993
12:18 p.m. (UTC−05:00)
6
1,042
Ramzi Yousef, Eyad Ismoil, and co-conspirators
Backlash against American foreign policy and U.S. support for Israel
The attack was planned by a group of terrorists including Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad A. Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin, and Ahmed Ajaj. In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing: Abouhalima, Ajaj, Ayyad, and Salameh. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property, and interstate transportation of explosives. In November 1997, two more were convicted: Ramzi Yousef, the organizer behind the bombings, and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the van carrying the bomb.[6]
Emad Salem, an FBI informant and a key witness in the trial of Ramzi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, and Wali Khan Amin Shah, stated that the bomb itself was built under supervision from the FBI.[7] During his time as an FBI informant, Salem recorded hours of telephone conversations with his FBI handlers. In tapes made after the bombing, Salem alleged that an unnamed FBI supervisor declined to move forward on a plan that would have used a "phony powder" to fool the conspirators into believing that they were working with genuine explosives.[8]
Planning and organization[edit]
Ramzi Yousef spent time at an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan,[9] before beginning in 1991 to plan a bombing attack within the United States. Yousef's uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who later was considered the principal architect of the September 11 attacks, gave him advice and tips over the phone, and funded his co-conspirator Mohammed Salameh with a US$660 wire transfer.
Yousef arrived illegally in the United States on September 1, 1992, traveling with Ahmed Ajaj from Pakistan, though both sat apart on the flight and acted as though they were traveling separately. Ajaj tried to enter with a forged Swedish passport, though it had been altered and thus raised suspicions among INS officials at John F. Kennedy International Airport. When officials put Ajaj through secondary inspection, they discovered bomb-making instructions and other materials in his luggage, and arrested him. The name Abu Barra, an alias of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, appeared in the manuals. Yousef tried to enter with a false Iraqi passport, claiming political asylum. Yousef was allowed into the United States, and was given a hearing date.[10]
Yousef set up residence in Jersey City, New Jersey, traveled around New York and New Jersey and called Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, a controversial blind 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 (680 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device for delivery to the WTC. He ordered chemicals from his hospital room when he had been 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, 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 .357 caliber revolver used by Nosair in the Kahane shooting. In the initial court case in NYS Criminal Court, Nosair was acquitted of murder but convicted of gun charges (in a related and follow-up case in Federal Court, he was convicted). 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 the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and 1,440 rounds of ammunition. (Lance 2004 26)
According to the transcript of his trial, Yousef hoped that his explosion would topple Tower 1 which would fall into Tower 2, killing the occupants of both buildings, which he estimated to be about 250,000 people[11] in revenge for U.S. support for Israel against Palestine.[12]
According to journalist Steve Coll, Yousef mailed letters to various New York newspapers just before the attack, in which he claimed he belonged to "Liberation Army, Fifth Battalion".[13]
These letters made three demands: 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." He stated that the attack on the World Trade Center would be merely the first of such attacks if his demands were not met. Yousef did not make any religious justification for the bombing. When asked about his religious views, he was evasive.[14]
Criminal cases[edit]
Investigations[edit]
Though the cause of the blast was not immediately known, with some suspecting a transformer explosion; agents and bomb technicians from the ATF, FBI, and the NYPD quickly responded to the scene. Agents quickly determined that the magnitude of the explosion was far beyond that of a transformer explosion. The FBI Laboratory Division technician, David Williams, who took charge of the crime scene, claimed to know prior to scientific testing the nature and size of the bomb which other lab specialists such as Stephen Burmeister and Frederic Whitehurst contradicted and later challenged with embarrassing consequences for the FBI Laboratory.[41] In the days after the bombing, investigators surveyed the damage and looked for clues. About 300 FBI agents were deployed under the codename TRADEBOM.[42] While combing through the rubble in the underground parking area, a bomb technician located some internal component fragments from the vehicle that delivered the bomb. A vehicle identification number (VIN), found on a piece from an axle, gave investigators crucial information that led them to a Ryder van rented from DIB Leasing in Jersey City. Investigators determined that the vehicle had been rented by Mohammed A. Salameh, one of Yousef's co-conspirators.[43] Salameh had reported the van stolen, and when he returned on March 4, 1993, to get his deposit back, authorities arrested him.[44]
Aftermath[edit]
Reopening and cost[edit]
The South Tower did not reopen for tenants until March 18, 1993[49] (the World Trade Center Observation Deck reopened on April 17, 1993)[50] while the North Tower remained closed until April 1, 1993. The cost to repair both buildings was estimated at $250 million, according to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum.[51] The Vista International Hotel at 3 World Trade Center remained closed until November 1, 1994, after extensive repairs and renovations that amounted to $65 million.[52] The concourse level was reopened on March 27, 1993, while the parking garage reopened on September 1, 1993, for some government employee's vehicles. Commercial tenants' employees were not allowed until spring 1994.[53][54] Also, new security measures were introduced including identification tags for approved cars and drivers, surveillance cameras and a barrier rising out of the roadway to stop rogue vehicles.
Even though the Windows on the World at the North Tower's 107th floor wasn't damaged, the explosion damaged receiving areas, air-conditioning system, storage, and parking spots used by the restaurant complex. As a result, the restaurant was forced to shut down. As the Port Authority decided to hire Joseph Baum, the restaurant's original designer, to renovate the space at a cost of $25 million reopening was delayed until June 26, 1996.[55][56] Cellar in the Sky reopened after Labor Day of that same year.[57]
FBI involvement[edit]
In the course of the trial, it was revealed that the FBI had an informant, a former Egyptian army officer named Emad Salem. Salem claimed FBI involvement in building of the bomb.[7] He secretly recorded hundreds of hours of telephone conversations with his FBI handlers. Federal authorities denied Salem's view of events and the New York Times concluded that the tapes "do not make clear the extent to which Federal authorities knew that there was a plan to bomb the World Trade Center, merely that they knew that a bombing of some sort was being discussed." But for the recordings, Emad would have been charged as a co-conspirator. It was recordings that were never provided to the New York Times that prevented the FBI from charging Emad.[58]
Legal responsibility[edit]
Some of the victims (which included families of the killed victims) of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings sued the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for damages. A decision was handed down in 2005, assigning liability for the bombings to the Port Authority.[78] The decision declared that the agency was 68 percent responsible for the bombing, and the terrorists bore only 32 percent of the responsibility. In January 2008, the Port Authority asked a five-judge panel of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan to throw out the decision, describing the jury's verdict as "bizarre".[79] On April 29, 2008, a New York State Appeals Court unanimously upheld the jury's verdict. Under New York law, a defendant who is more than 50 percent at fault can be held fully financially liable.[80]
On September 22, 2011, the New York Court of Appeals, in a four to three ruling, excluded the Port Authority from claims of negligence related to the 1993 bombing.[81]
It has been argued that the problem with the apportionment of responsibility in the case is not the jury's verdict, but rather New York's tort-reform-produced state apportionment law. Traditionally, courts do not compare intentional and negligent fault. The Restatement Third of Torts: Apportionment of Liability recommends a rule to prevent juries from having to make comparisons like the terrorist–Port Authority comparison in this case.[82] However, if a jurisdiction does compare these intentional and negligent torts, courts' second-best position is to do what the NYS Appeals Court did—to uphold all jury apportionments, even those that assign greater, or perhaps far greater, responsibility to negligent than intentional parties.[83]