Lessons of first WTC bombing (1993)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
[I was motivated to seed this article from the past when I saw this recent this seed of this current (8/31/2019) news story: " Robert F. Kennedy Assassin Sirhan Sirhan Stabbed In Prison"].
The following article appeared on the BBC site in 2003 . . .
Ten years ago, a bomb exploded in the car park of the World Trade Center building in New York, killing six and injuring over 1,000.
Six men are serving life imprisonment as a result.
But in light of the events of 11 September, a number of analysts are now questioning whether the attack was a warning that was never heeded.
"In many ways it was the opening salvo of al-Qaeda's campaign against the West," terrorism writer Simon Reeve told the BBC World Service's Analysis programme.
"Many of the individuals involved in the 1993 WTC bombing were connected in some way to Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
This was their first attack."
"The conspirators had actually planned to topple one of the Twin Towers into the other, while simultaneously releasing a cloud of cyanide gas," said Mr Reeve
He added that had things gone according to plan, the 1993 bombing would have caused greater devastation.
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After the attack, much of the US was stunned.
New York) State Governor Mario Cuomo summed up the mood, saying: "Until now we were invulnerable."
I remember that feeling of invulnerability most Americans had at the time. After all, this sort of terror attack was believed to happen only "over there"-- overseas. Certainly not in the U.S.!
(And besides, many felt we had two broad oceans to protect us....
You must be more careful, Krishna. There are members on NT who will quickly label you an Islamophobe for referring to the Robert Kennedy assassination, 9/11 and the original WTC bombing in the same article.
Buzz of the Orient is back, noted Charger of the Shenandoah
With a vengeance.
"What the attack in '93 demonstrated was that a relatively small group of relatively unsophisticated people could carry out a massive attack with very little money and nearly topple the World Trade Center."
Terror mastermind
Later in 1993, the FBI did uncover - and foil - several other planned attacks, including one on the UN building in New York. But the man responsible for planning the WTC bomb, Ramzi Yousef, proved much harder to track down - and it was in dealing with him that experts contend the US should have first realised the strength of what they were now up against.
Yousef was only arrested in 1995, after a defector from his group in Pakistan informed on him.
He was said to be planning further acts of terror, including assassinations on US President Bill Clinton and the Pope, as well as an attack on twelve airliners.
Al-Qaeda finished what Yousef started
...and now we have like minded individuals on internet news forums posing as Americans preaching the genocide of Israel and the undermining of our nation as a whole...