A Look Back at the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing Investigation

By Scott Stewart

On the morning of Feb. 26, 1993, a massive truck bomb ripped a hole almost 100 feet across the B-2 level of the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center's North Tower. The blast wave was so powerful that it penetrated five stories of the reinforced concrete building. In addition to causing structural damage, the explosion destroyed or heavily damaged hundreds of vehicles parked in the garage. That such a powerful explosion killed only six people is nothing short of miracle, for the attackers had a goal much more grandiose.

 
They wanted to topple the North Tower onto the South Tower to destroy them both and kill thousands. Had a device of the same magnitude been detonated at street level during rush hour, it would have likely killed scores if not hundreds of people and wounded perhaps thousands more.

From Yemen To New York City

An hour or two after the bombing, I landed in Frankfurt, Germany, on my way back to Washington, D.C. from Yemen. I was working as a Special Agent for the Diplomatic Security Service investigating a bombing attack against U.S. Air Force personnel in Aden on Dec. 29, 1992, and a rocket attack against the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa in January 1993. As I stood in the airport terminal looking at the first reports of the World Trade Center bombing, I had no idea the attack was linked to the incidents I had been investigating in Yemen. Later it would be discovered that the same group that conducted the Yemen attacks also bombed the Trade Center: al Qaeda.

Read more »https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/look-back-1993-world-trade-center-bombing-investigation?mc_cid=08bc7928ce&mc_eid=52511177bc