The 13th Anniversary of the 1993 WTC Bombing - NEVER FORGET

Today is the 13th anniversary of the bombing of the World Trade Center parking garage on February 26, 1993, in which 6 Americans died (7 including an unborn baby carried by one of the adult victims) and over 1,000 were injured. The Wikipedia has an excellent summary of the event and the terrorists involved. This BBC story from that day will give you an idea of the chaos at the WTC during and after the bombing. The mastermind of the bombing, Ramzi Yousef, was convicted in 1998 and will spend the rest of his life in prison. The spiritual leader of the Islamic Jihad-associated terrorists who conducted the bombing, Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, was also convicted in connection with the bombings and is also serving a life sentence without parole. A small stone memorial in honor of the victims of the 1993 bombing was erected in the WTC and was destroyed in the 9/11/01 attacks (see picture below).

The 1993 WTC bombing should have been the wake-up call for America to pay attention to the growing worldwide web of Islamist terrorists. In June 1997, over four years before the 9/11/01 attacks, Steven Emerson was interviewed for "Middle East Forum," in which he predicted future attacks and stated, "All the major terror groups of a fundamentalist orientation have established deeply routed, well-organized cells and infrastructure here -- Hamas Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah, as well as the Algerian groups, Islamic Salvation Front and Armed Islamic Group." In February 1998, Steve testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, in which he discussed the network of radical Islamists then operating within the U.S., many of whom were prosecuted or deported after the 9/11 attacks.

The terrorists who conducted the attacks were still writing to their overseas allies years after the event, as reported by NBC News on March 1, 2005 and posted here last July by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross. At least 14 letters were written between the WTC bombers and a Spanish terror cell. Another letter was published in the Al-Quds newspaper, stating, "Osama Bin Laden is my hero of this generation."

We should never forget the hard lessons of the 1993 WTC bombing and the six victims:

* John DiGiovanni, Valley Stream, New York
* Robert Kirkpatrick, Suffern, New York
* Steve Knapp, Manhattan, New York City
* Monica Smith, Seaford, New York (and unborn baby)
* William Macko, Bayonne, New Jersey
* Wilfredo Mercado, Brooklyn, New York City

Picture of Memorial to 1993 WTC victims