World Trade Center Bombing (1993)

On February 26, 1993, during a typical Friday lunch hour, a truck bomb exploded in a basement-level parking garage under the World Trade Center in New York City, killing six and injuring more than 1,000. At the time, the bombing was considered the worst act of terrorism to have been perpetrated on U.S. soil. However, that bombing was overshadowed in 1995 by the Oklahoma City bombing, and then by the September 11, 2001, attacks.

The first World Trade Center bombing conspiracy began in the months before September 1, 1992, when two of the main conspirators, Ahmad Ajaj and Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, arrived in the United States from Pakistan. The Immigration and Naturalization Service detained Ajaj and confiscated his suitcase, which contained bombing manuals and anti-American propaganda. Yousef, traveling on an Iraqi passport bearing the name Abdel Basit Mahmoud, requested political asylum and was ...