The World Trade Center in lower Manhattan is badly damaged when a car bomb planted explodes in an underground garage of 2 World Trade Center, on the second subterranean level of Vista Hotel’s public parking garage. The bomb leaves six people dead and more than 1,000 people are treated for injuries.
Ramzi Yousef constructs and helps plant the bomb, and the six men subsequently convicted of participated in the bombing are identified as followers of Omar Abdul Rahman (the “blind Sheikh”), an Egyptian cleric who lived and preached in the New York City area.
Just after noon, the bombers parked a Ryder rental van loaded with the bomb outside Room 107 on the B-2 level between the twin towers. At 12:17:37 the bomb detonates, blowing a four-story crater down to the B-4 level. Monica Smith, a pregnant secretary, is instantly killed along with her unborn child.
According to The Cell (p. 96), the FBI is “caught by surprise.” Richard Clarke later writes somewhat hyperbolically in Against All Enemies (pp. 78-79) that: “The FBI and CIA should have been able to answer my question, ‘Who are these guys?’ but they still could not. The real answer was a group that the FBI and CIA had not yet heard of: al Qaeda. … Not only had no one in the CIA or FBI ever heard of it, apparently they had never heard of bin Laden either. His name never came up in our meetings in 1993 as a suspect in the World Trade Center attack. We did hear about someone who appeared to be Ramzi Yousef’s uncle. He went by various names, and he appeared to be behind Yousef’s mysterious money. One name he used was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.” It is misremembering of the highest order of Clarke’s part, as if he knew al Qaeda and as if KSM was discussed – neither are true. Of course the Agency and FBI were already tracking bin Laden and KSM’s connection wouldn’t be established to the World Trade Center bombing (and then only as a minor financier) for another two years.
Day: February 26, 2021