Page 58 - Heavenly Signs III by Mel Gable

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six basements housed two subway stations. Some 50,000 people worked in the buildings, while another 200,000
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visited or passed through each day.

World Trade Center – 1993

The World Trade Center bombing occurred on February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb was detonated below the
North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, City. The 1,336 lb urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced
device was intended to knock the North Tower (Tower One) into the South Tower (Tower Two), bringing both
towers down and killing thousands of people. It failed to do so, but did kill six people and injured more than a
thousand. The attack was planned by a group of conspirators including Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud Abouhalima,
Mohammad Salameh, Nidal A. Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmad Ajaj. They received financing from
Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Yousef's uncle. In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the
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bombing - Abouhalima, Ajaj, Ayyad and Salameh.

On Friday, February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef and a Jordanian friend, Eyad Ismoil, drove a yellow Ryder van into
Lower Manhattan and pulled into the public parking garage beneath the World Trade Center around noon. They
parked on the underground B-2 level. Yousef ignited the 20-foot fuse, and fled. Twelve minutes later, at 12:17:37
in the afternoon, the bomb exploded in the underground garage which generated an estimated pressure of
150,000 PSI. The bomb opened a 98 ft wide hole through four sublevels of concrete. The detonation velocity of
this bomb was about 15,000 ft/s. Initial news reports indicated a main transformer may have blown, not realizing
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a bomb had exploded in the basement.

North Tower Bombing

The plan was that if the bomb truck was parked at the right place, the North Tower would fall onto the South
Tower causing both to collapse. However, the tower did not collapse. Although the cause of the blast was not
immediately known, some suspected a transformer explosion. Agents and bomb technicians from the ATF, FBI,
and the NYPD quickly responded to the scene. All together, six people were killed and 1,042 others injured.

The bomb instantly cut off the World Trade Center's main electrical power line, knocking out the emergency
lighting system. The bomb caused smoke to rise up to the 93rd floor of both towers, including through the
stairwells which were not pressurized. With thick smoke filling the stairwells, evacuation was difficult for building
occupants and led to many smoke inhalation injuries. Hundreds were trapped in elevators in the towers when the
power was cut off.

Yousef was assisted by Iraqi bomb maker Abdul Rahman Yasin, who helped assemble the complex 1,300-pound
bomb which was made of a urea nitrate main charge with aluminum, magnesium and ferric oxide particles
surrounding the explosive. The charge used nitroglycerine, ammonium nitrate dynamite, smokeless powder and
fuse as booster explosives. Three tanks of bottled hydrogen were also placed in a circular configuration around
the main charge, to enhance the fireball and after burn of the solid metal particles. The use of compressed gas
cylinders in this type of attack closely resembles the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing 10 years earlier. Both of these
attacks used compressed gas cylinders to create fuel-air and thermo-baric bomb. It was to release more energy

84 Darton (1999), p. 204

85 Whitlock, Craig (2005-07-05). "Homemade, Cheap and dangerous – Terror Cells Favor Simple Ingredients In Building Bombs".
Washington Post.
86 Barbanel, Josh (1993-02-27). "Tougher Code May Not Have Helped". The New York Times.