Lessons of first (1993) WTC bombing went unheeded
Note: This article is from 2003-- ten years after the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center which occurred on February 26th . . . way back in 1993!
The attack on 9/11 was the second terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in less than a decade.
On February 26, 1993, approximately 1,200 pounds of explosives in a rental van parked in the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center was detonated by a small cell of terrorists linked to a local radical mosque and an Islamist terror network.
Related Seed:
Where Were You When You First Heard About The Second (9/11/2001) Attack on the WTC?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The World Trade Center after the bomb. The bomb did not do the damage it was meant to.
Lessons of first WTC bombing
Ten years ago*, on February 26, 1993, 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."
Next time I'll have more money, I'll come back and I'll bring those towers down. --1993 bomb mastermind Ramzi Yousef
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* Note: this article is from 2003. The first attack on the WTC (referred to in this article), was February 26, 1993.
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Lessons of the first WTC bombing
On February 26, 1993, 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.
"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."
He added that had things gone according to plan, the 1993 bombing would have caused greater devastation.
"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.
"What they were planning was really quite an apocalyptic terrorist attack."
Only financial restrictions had prevented the perpetrators from achieving their aim.
"They ran out of money. They didn't have enough gas canisters for the bomb, and some of the low-level members of the conspiracy - the foot soldiers - placed the bomb alongside the wrong support structure."
Lessons unlearned
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."
But there was a limit to what could be learned directly - ironically because the group that carried out the attack had been so easy to track down.
"We encountered probably the dumbest terrorists we've ever encountered," recalls Neil Livingstone, one of the top terrorism experts in the US.
Mohammed Salameh appeared in court only a week later, charged with the bombing after he tried to collect the deposit on the rental van used in the attack.
Ironically, many people are unaware that this attack, the first attack on the WTC, even occurred!
Why???
No one knows!
The thick plottens!
or not....
???
Why??? Because Americans have been taught to believe that they were invulnerable, exceptional, the world leaders, the best that ever was, and as Frank Zappa and his orchestra The Mothers of Invention played and sang - "It can't happen here".
Actually I do remember that before 9/11, many Americans were sure that twerrorism happens in far off places like the Arab world, parts of sub-Saharan AfricaAfrica, etc, but can't happen here.
I remember that there were mainly two reasons why they believed that:
1. Because we're far away from areas where there are terrorist hotbeds. We have a vast ocean between the U.S. and those other places.
2. That because we are by far so superior militarily to any other country, no one would dare attack us.
That's what most Americans believed...prior to 9/11.