The 1993 World Trade Center Bombing

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The 1993 World Trade Center Bombing

On February 26, 1993 at 12:18 pm in New York City, the first call was received at the Central Office from a street alarm box at the corner of West and Liberty Streets. The call was reporting a possible transformer vault (or manhole) explosion on West Street near the World Trade Center. As manhole explosions are common in wet whether, there was no hint of a major catastrophe until the phones never ceased to ring after aid had arrived to the site. Numerous phone calls continued, now reporting smoke in the towers of the Trade Center as far up as the 33rd floor within the first three minutes of the explosion (http://members.aol.com/fd347/wtc.htm). The ceiling then collapsed in the train station, which is located on the B4 level of the complex. The consensus was then made that it was not a vault. The calls continued from stranded occupants within both towers and the Vista hotel searching for instruction.

The blast was centered on the B2 level. It was so intense that it "caused the collapse of the steel reinforced concrete floor to the floor below (B3 level), which in turn caused more collapses" (http://members.aol.com/fd347/wtc.htm). After a gruelling day of rescue and heartbreak, the incident was declared under control at 2:25 am, Saturday February 27 (http://members.aol.com/fd347/wtc.htm). Included in the blasts toll, 6 civilians were killed, over 1,000 injured, and 105 fire fighters were injured. Also, the restoration process of the towers came at the cost of $250, 000, 000 (http://members.aol.com/fd347/wtc.htm).

CNN News on August 5th, 1997 in New York, highlighted an article titled "Prosecutor: Yousef aimed to topple Center towers" http://cnn.com/US/9708/05/wtc.trial/ index.html). ...

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...5/trade.center.trial/). Yousef and Ismoil fled New York City on the night of the bombing. The U.S. government posted a $2 million reward for the capture of the "architect"(http://www.sltrib.com/97/nov/111397/nation_w/6914.htm) of the attack. Yousef was captured in Pakistan in 1995, and Ismoil was seized that same year in Jordan.

In an Article by the Salt Lake Tribune on November 13th 1997, a federal court jury was said to have found Ramzi Ahmed Yousef guilty the previous day, of masterminding the bombing and convicted co-defendant Ismoil, for driving the van of explosives into the garage of the trade center. Throughout the trial, Prosecutor's portrayed Yousef as one of the most sinister terrorists in history, which shattered the myth that the United States was exempt from terrorism. The verdict came on the third day of deliberations. Both face life in prison.

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