The Forgotten Twin Towers Attack That Happened Eight Years Before 9/11

On September 11, 2001, two planes crashed into the Twin Towers that formed part of New York City's World Trade Center complex. The two skyscrapers crumbled like a pack of cards, killing nearly 3,000 people. This wasn't the first attack on the two buildings. Eight years before 9/11, the towers were the target of another terrorist attack.

On February 26, 1993, a group of attackers tried to destroy one of Manhattan's most iconic landmarks.

Seventeen minutes after noon, an explosion rocked lower Manhattan. The epicentre was the World Trade Center, where a van loaded with almost 1,200 pounds of explosives was driven into the public parking garage.

The blast created a crater several stories deep in the lower levels of the complex. Six people were immediately killed. Over a thousand were injured.

What the attackers had in mind was much more sinister. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found out that the plotters hoped the bomb would topple one tower, and the collapsing debris would knock down the second one.

The blast turned out to be a deadly dress rehearsal of sorts for 9/11, when the towers were struck by hijacked planes.

Were The Attackers Caught?

Investigative agencies found that the van used to carry out the attack was rented to a man named Mohammad Salameh. On March 4, 1993, an FBI SWAT team arrested him.

A second terrorist plot to bomb a series of New York landmarks simultaneously was uncovered. The potential targets included the UN building, the FBI's office in the city, and the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels.

Agencies soon had three more suspects in custody - Nidal Ayyad, Mahmoud Abouhalima, and Ahmed Ajaj. They also found the apartment where the bomb was built as well as a storage locker containing enough cyanide gas to wipe out a town.

All four individuals were tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in jail. The mastermind of the 1993 bombing, Ramzi Yousef, was arrested in 1995 in Pakistan.

Yousef and the van driver, Eyad Ismoil, were also convicted. A seventh plotter, Abdul Yasin, remains on the run.

In 2001, Yousef's uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, helped al-Qaeda mount a deadly terror attack on the Twin Towers, changing the skyline of New York forever.