1st WTC Bombing: 22nd
Anniversary of February 26th, 1993
This week is the 22nd Anniversary of the first World Trade Center (WTC) Bombing Attack. On Thursday good people of all faiths will gather in small Downtown Manhattan churches to quietly honor family members, fellow commuters and how they lived before they were savagely silenced without a moment's notice in 1993.
Do
you remember where you were standing when this particular attack on our nation
took place? Oddly enough, most people do not.
On
February 26th 1993, followers of ‘Blind Sheikh’ Omar Abdel Rahman of Egypt and
Jersey City blew a breathtaking 10-story gaping hole inside the World
Trade Center using explosives placed in a U-Haul truck they had rented from a
gas station at the foot of the Bayonne Bridge on Kennedy Boulevard in New
Jersey. They operated undetected between this location and a storage facility
on Route 440 as they executed the first phase of their plan.
Their
aggressive terror goal was to use an underground parking garage under the World
Trade Center to wreak havoc on U.S. soil inside the economic capital of the
world while killing you, me and any Westerner in their path.
Their extended plan to
drown thousands more of us on this same day inside the NYC subways by
puncturing a hole in the Army Corps of Engineers wall which holds back the
Hudson River on the West Side of Manhattan failed that morning.
At
the time it didn't feel like America was paying much attention and some of us
who lived and worked in this corridor of the Tri-State area were
worried that enough people had not fully grasped the magnitude of what this
event meant to our region and our nation's health, welfare and security.
Twenty-two years after this
bombing, we remain convinced we were right.
In
the end, the first World Trade Center attack left only 6 dead and 1,042
injured, and the terrorists vowed to come again. On September 11th, 2001
Islamic Extremists finished the job Sheikh Abdel-Rahman tactically managed, launched
and started not in the shadows but in broad daylight on both sides of the
Hudson River in the years leading up to 1993.
People
who know me know that I stood with a handful of commuters on the deck of a SeaStreak
Commuter Ferry in the middle of New York Harbor - a working mom grasping my
husband's hand petrified and helpless as the ‘enormity of horror’ called 9/11
played out.
For
us a dangerous phenomenon that had our full attention in 1993 had returned with
a vengeance before our eyes and there was nothing left to do but pray in the
middle of NY Bay as our captain raced to pick up the first 300 people fleeing
for their lives at Pier 11 on the East River.
From
Downtown NYC to the Atlantic Highlands the SeaStreak crew helped lead a
remarkable 9/11 recovery effort that would later become known as the largest
boatlift in human history, (BOATLIFT, An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience -www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg -
Narrated by Tom Hanks). - It was a commute from hell that transcended time,
place and comprehension.
As
our navigation route took us to the south-east side of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge,
a blinding mushroom cloud erased our magnificent and incredible towers as they
succumbed to the terrors of our society.
Then, a fellow passenger
screamed out that the Pentagon had been hit!
There
we were - a few hundred passengers on a simple commuter ferry alarmed, dazed
and stunned, some with tears streaming, some with more fear than others - all
of us frozen-and-bound together by a silence louder than any voice we had ever
heard. It was the voice of "terrorism."
How
did we arrive at this terrible place in our country's history is the question
that never leaves me…
For
years as I hustled to my job in Hudson County as a Recruitment Director at ADP
Brokerage Services Group, the infamous Blind Sheikh sat a mere arms-length from
me and all commuters on a cement wall in the open square (Journal Square,
Jersey City) surrounded by dozens of doting and adoring followers - all
men in their young twenties - dressed in traditional garb. They
would arrive daily by NJ Path Train from across the Tri-State region to circle
at the Sheikh's feet.
Across
the street from my office was a make-shift mosque one floor up from the Chinese
restaurant in Journal Square, Jersey City. For years, hundreds of
men operated daily as ‘welcome friends’ in this neighborhood as they made
their way to this temporary location for afternoon
prayers.
After
the 1993 WTC Attack, it was confirmed that this exact spot of worship had
been hijacked and abused as a camouflaged safe house by Sheikh
Abdel-Rahman who used it to advise a few hand-picked pupils on how to conspire
to harm and murder others. It was the Blind Sheikh – an Islamic
Extremist - who left the beautiful embracing arms of Jersey City
brutally broke at the elbows on the boulevard.
After
the 1993 bombing was carried out, followers cheered inside
clandestine hallways across New York and New Jersey; others did the same
openly to honor the Blind Sheik's leadership, conquest and
success. It hurt, but few noticed.
On
and after 9/11, the world watched more dancing in the streets across the globe
as crowds burned American flags in a symbolic salute honoring the hatred that
resulted in the cold blooded killing of 3,000 more innocent victims on the U.S.
homeland. But... through it all the strength and resilience of the
American people was never far behind.
This
Thursday family members and friends of America's 1993 victims will take their
somber trip to Lower Manhattan mostly alone, but once again this year they will
be able to run their fingers across the names of loved ones that are now etched
for eternity in marble and granite at the WTC Memorial Site.
Those
who died represent you and me - all of us who travelled through the World Trade
Center complex to get to work or NYC culture in those days.
Some
of those injured are still working to repair the physical and emotional wounds
so they can one day move on…
In a twist of fate not to
be believed a few who were injured but miraculously survived in 1993 ended up
living 8 more years only to be injured or killed in the second wave of hatred
and violence on 9/11.
For
many of us living and working in the urban trenches across this region these
experiences altered our lives, attitudes, thinking and shattered our sense of
security forever...
Events
like this are supposed to do that, but as a teenager I fortunately encountered
the most engaging history teacher of my life - the amazing David Oxenford at
Pt. Pleasant Beach High School - who taught students it was a civic duty and
our awesome responsibility to research, learn, face, assess, reassess, remember
and respect history.
As
difficult as it is to relive these events, thanks to Mr. Oxenford I remain
focused on what happened more than two decades ago…
I believe reciting the
events of February 26th 1993 is the best way to honor the 6 commuters who were
murdered and 1,042 injured. ~ How and why they were selected and killed by
Islamic Extremists must always matter.
I left Mr. Oxenford’s
classroom knowing full well that a failure to understand history and its reach
and/or to participate in ‘collective apathy’ always creates conditions and
opportunities for 'all' history to repeat itself.
Here
we all are in 2015, living the reality of history’s warning twenty-two years after
the 1st WTC Bombing. The
Islamic State (ISIS) is hidden in plain sight creating new Killing Fields
across the globe...
It’s important to tell you
that the Blind Sheikh was mostly invisible to us in Jersey City… until he and
his followers came out of the shadows to kill us on February 26th,
1993.
~ May God Bless America on
this 22nd Anniversary & always.
From Wikipedia
The 1993 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 1,500 lb (680 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device[1] was intended to knock the North Tower (Tower One) into the South Tower (Tower Two), bringing both towers down and killing thousands of people.[2][3] It failed to do so, but did kill six people and injured 1,042.
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 Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef's uncle. In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing: Abouhalima, Ajaj, Ayyad and Salameh. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property and interstate transportation of explosives. In November 1997, two more were convicted: Yousef, the mastermind behind the bombings, and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying the bomb
The 1993 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 1,500 lb (680 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device[1] was intended to knock the North Tower (Tower One) into the South Tower (Tower Two), bringing both towers down and killing thousands of people.[2][3] It failed to do so, but did kill six people and injured 1,042.
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 Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef's uncle. In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing: Abouhalima, Ajaj, Ayyad and Salameh. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property and interstate transportation of explosives. In November 1997, two more were convicted: Yousef, the mastermind behind the bombings, and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying the bomb
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