20th Anniversary of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing
Homeland Security Digital Library Blog 2013-02-27
Summary:
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, in which six people died and approximately 1,000 more were injured after terrorists detonated a 1,500 pound truck bomb in the parking garage of the North Tower. The bomb exploded at 12:18 p.m. and resulted in a crater almost 100 feet wide as well as the collapse of several steel-reinforced concrete floors. The FBI immediately launched a "massive investigation" and within days had arrested several radical Islamic fundamentalists. The following year, Mohammed Salameh, Ahmed Ajaj, Nidal Ayyad, and Mahmoud Abouhalima were convicted of carrying out the attack. Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the mastermind behind the bombing, was arrested in Pakistan in 1995 and convicted along with the van driver, Eyad Ismoil. Yousef's original plan was to knock the North Tower into the South Tower, which would have caused thousands of deaths. Another conspirator, Abdul Yasin, remains at large.
The blast killed John DiGiovanni, Stephen Knapp, Robert W. Kirkpatrick, William Macko, Wilfredo Mercado, Monica Rodriguez Smith, and her unborn child. Their names are now "inscribed in bronze on the 9/11 Memorial on panel N-73, among the thousands of names of those killed on 9/11. They remind us that these events are inextricably linked, and of our sacred obligation to never forget those who were killed."
The HSDL has several documents and resources for you to read as you reflect upon this tragic event. Some of these documents can be found below: