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During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, supporters of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African country of Rwanda murdered up to 800,000 civilians, the majority of whom were Tutsi. The genocide began with Hutu nationalists in Kigali's capital, and spread through the world with alarming pace and violence as common people were incited to take up arms against their neighbors by local authorities and the Hutu Power administration. Hundreds of thousands of Rwandans had died and 2 million refugees (mostly Hutus) had fled Rwanda by the time the Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front took control of the country through a military operation in early July, exacerbating what had already been a full-blown humanitarian crisis. A plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundi's president, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was shot down over Kigali on April 6, 1994, with no survivors. (The identity of the perpetrators has never been proven conclusively.) Hutu extremists have been blamed by others, while RPF officials have been blamed by others.) On April 7, the moderate Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and ten Belgian peacekeepers were among the first casualties of the genocide. This violence created a political void, which was filled on April 9 by a provisional government made up of militant Hutu Power leaders from the military high command. Meanwhile, the assassination of Belgium's peacekeepers prompted the country's troops to withdraw.

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Rwandan Genocide - Facts, Response & Trials

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The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occured in 1994 when members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African nation of Rwanda murdered as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. Started by Hutu nationalists in the capital of Kigali, the genoc…

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The court trial of former college and professional gridiron football player O.J. Simpson, who was cleared of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her associate Ronald Goldman in 1995. That was one of the most well-known jury cases in the history of the United States. Simpson's ex-wife and Goldman were stabbed to death outside her condominium in Los Angeles on June 12, 1994, and Simpson was immediately identified as the prime suspect. Simpson hid in the rear of a sport-utility vehicle owned by his associate A.C. Cowlings on June 17 rather than report to authorities after being informed of imminent charges. Officers chased the car at low speeds for more than an hour after receiving information that Simpson had a gun to his head. Hundreds of Simpson's supporters lined the streets in support of him during the attempted "escape," which was broadcast live nationwide to an estimated 95 million people. It all came to a head at Simpson's home in Brentwood, California, where he was arrested and taken into custody. The jury started deliberating on October 2, 1995, and reached a decision in less than four hours. Ito, on the other hand, postponed the news for the next day. Simpson was acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman on October 3. Following the decision, national opinion polling tended to divide along ethnic lines. The jury's verdict shocked whites, but the majority of African Americans cheered it, viewing Simpson's acquittal as a triumph in a court system that routinely discriminated against blacks.

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After attending a peace rally in Tel Aviv's Kings Square, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is fatally wounded. Rabin later died in surgery at Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital. Yigal Amir, a 27-year-old Jewish law student with links to the far-right Jewish party Eyal, shot the 73-year-old prime minister in the arm and back as he walked to his car. Amir was apprehended by Israeli police at the site of the shooting and later admitted to the murder, saying during his arraignment that he killed Rabin because the prime minister wished to "throw our country to the Arabs." Rabin was a key figure in the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict and served as Israel's chief of staff during the 1967 Six-Day War. Rabin joined the Labour Party after serving as Israel's ambassador to the United States and becoming Prime Minister in 1974. He led the talks that led to a 1974 cease-fire with Syria and a 1975 military disengagement deal between Israel and Egypt as Prime Minister. Rabin resigned as Prime Minister in 1977 due to a controversy surrounding his illegally owning bank accounts in the United States. He was the security minister of his country from 1984 to 1990. Rabin was re-elected Prime Minister of Israel after leading the Labour Party to victory in the election. In 1993, he and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat signed the landmark Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles, and in 1994, he signed a formal peace deal with the Palestinians. Rabin and Arafat, as well as Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, shared the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1994. Rabin was killed a year later. Peres took over as Prime Minister after him.

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Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is fatally shot after attending a peace rally held in Tel Aviv's Kings Square in Israel. Rabin later died in surgery at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv.

The 73-year-old prime minister was walking to his car when he was shot in the arm and the back by Yigal Amir, a 27-year-old Jewish law student who had connections to the far-right Jewish group Eyal. Israeli police arrested Amir at the scene of the shooting, and he later confessed to the assassination, explaining at his arraignment that he killed Rabin because the prime minister wanted "to give our country to the Arabs."

Born in Jerusalem, Rabin was a leader of the Arab-Israeli war of 1948 and served as chief-of-staff of Israel's armed forces during the Six-Day War of 1967. After serving as Israel's ambassador to the United States, Rabin entered the Labour Party and became prime minister in 1974. As prime minister, he conducted the negotiations that resulted in a 1974 cease-fire with Syria and the 1975 military disengagement agreement between Israel and Egypt. In 1977, Rabin resigned as prime minister over a scandal involving his holding of bank accounts in the United States in violation of Israeli law. From 1984 to 1990, he served as his country's defense minister.

In 1992, Rabin led the Labour Party to election victory and became Israel's prime minister again. In 1993, he signed the historic Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and in 1994 concluded a formal peace agreement with the Palestinians. In October 1994, Rabin and Arafat shared the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres. One year later, Rabin was assassinated. Peres succeeded him as prime minister.

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Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin assassinated

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Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin is fatally shot after attending a peace rally held in Tel Aviv's Kings Square in Israel. Rabin later died in surgery at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. The 73-year-old prime minister was walking to his car when he was shot in the arm and the back by Yigal Amir, a 27-year-old Jewish law student who had connections to the far-right Jewish group Eyal.

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The Oklahoma City bombing occurred on April 19, 1995, when a truck loaded with explosives exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds more. Timothy McVeigh, an anti-government terrorist who was executed in 2001 for his actions, detonated the bomb. Terry Nichols, a co-conspirator, was sentenced to life in prison. Before the World Trade Center bombings on September 11, 2001, the Oklahoma City bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil. Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a Ryder rental truck exploded with terrifying force in front of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. The powerful explosion blew off the building’s entire north wall. Emergency crews raced to Oklahoma from across the country, and when the rescue effort finally ended two weeks later, the death toll stood at 168 people. 19 young children who were in the building's day care facility at the time of the explosion were among the dead. The bombing, which damaged or demolished over 300 buildings in the local neighborhood, wounded over 650 other people. McVeigh was found guilty of all 11 charges against him on June 2, 1997, and the death penalty was unanimously imposed on August 14. Fortier, who had met McVeigh in the Army, was sentenced to 12 years in jail the next year for failure to warn police of the Oklahoma City bombing plot. In 2007, Fortier was released from jail and placed in witness protection. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison in December 1997 after being found guilty of one count of murder and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter for murdering federal law enforcement officers.

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Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building

Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a Ryder rental truck exploded with terrifying force in front of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.

The powerful explosion blew off the building's entire north wall. Emergency crews raced to Oklahoma from across the country, and when the rescue effort finally ended two weeks later, the death toll stood at 168 people.

The list of the deceased included 19 young children who were in the building's day care center at the time of the blast. More than 650 other people were injured in the bombing, which damaged or destroyed over 300 buildings in the immediate area.

Did you know? The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building opened in 1977 and was named for an Oklahoma native who became one of the youngest federal judges in U.S. history when he was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. Murrah died in 1975 at age 71.

Timothy McVeigh

A massive hunt for the bombing suspects ensued, and on April 21 an eyewitness description led authorities to charge Timothy McVeigh, a former U.S. Army soldier, in the case.

As it turned out, McVeigh was already in jail, having been stopped a little more than an hour after the bombing for a traffic violation and then arrested for unlawfully carrying a handgun. Shortly before he was scheduled to be released from jail, he was identified as a prime suspect in the bombing and charged.

That same day, Terry Nichols, an associate of McVeigh's, surrendered in Herington, Kansas. Both men were found to be members of a radical right-wing survivalist group based in Michigan.

On August 8, Michael Fortier, who knew of McVeigh's plan to bomb the federal building, agreed to testify against McVeigh and Nichols in exchange for a reduced sentence. Two days later, McVeigh and Nichols were indicted on charges of murder and unlawful use of explosives.

Domestic Terrorists Behind the Oklahoma City Bombing

While still in his teens, McVeigh, who was raised in western New York, acquired a penchant for guns and began honing survivalist skills he believed would be necessary in the event of a Cold War showdown with the Soviet Union.

He graduated from high school in 1986 and in 1988 enlisted in the Army, where he proved to be a disciplined and meticulous soldier. While in the military, McVeigh befriended fellow soldier Nichols, who was more than a dozen years his senior and shared his survivalist interests.

In early 1991, McVeigh served in the Persian Gulf War. He was decorated with several medals for his military service; however, after failing to qualify for the Special Forces program, McVeigh accepted the Army's offer of an early discharge and left in the fall of 1991.

At the time, the American military was downsizing after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Another result of the end of the Cold War was that McVeigh shifted his ideology from a hatred of foreign communist governments to a suspicion of the U.S. federal government, especially as its new leader Bill Clinton, elected in 1992, had successfully campaigned for the presidency on a platform of gun control.

McVeigh, Nichols and their associates were deeply radicalized by such events as the August 1992 shoot-out at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, between federal agents and survivalist Randy Weaver at his rural cabin, and the Waco siege of April, 1993, in which 75 members of a Branch Davidian religious sect died near Waco, Texas.

McVeigh planned an attack on the Murrah Building, which housed regional offices of such federal agencies as the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives, the agency that had launched the initial raid on the Branch Davidian compound.

On April 19, 1995, the two-year anniversary of the disastrous end to the Waco siege, McVeigh parked a Ryder rental truck loaded with a diesel-fuel-fertilizer bomb outside the Murrah Building and fled. Minutes later, the massive bomb exploded.

McVeigh and Nichols Sentenced

On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was convicted on all 11 counts against him, and on August 14 the death penalty was formally imposed.

The following year, Fortier, who had met McVeigh in the Army, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn authorities about the Oklahoma City bombing plan. Fortier was released from prison in 2007 and entered the witness protection program.

In December 1997, Nichols was found guilty on one count of conspiracy and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter, for killing federal law enforcement personnel, and was sentenced to life in prison. In 2004, he was tried on state charges in Oklahoma and convicted of 161 counts of first-degree murder, including fetal homicide. He received 161 consecutive life terms in prison.

Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum

In December 2000, McVeigh asked a federal judge to stop all appeals of his convictions and to set a date for his execution.

The request was granted, and on June 11, 2001, McVeigh, at age 33, died by lethal injection at the U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was the first federal prisoner to be put to death since 1963.

In May 1995, the Murrah Building was demolished for safety reasons, and the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum later opened at the site.

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Shortly after 9:00 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a Ryder rental truck exploded with terrifying force in front of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. The powerful explosion blew off the building's entire north wall.

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Yolanda Saldvar shot and killed the Grammy nominee on March 31, 1995, just two weeks before her 24th birthday. Selena's close friend Saldvar was the founder and president of her fan club, as well as the manager of her Selena Etc. boutiques in San Antonio and Corpus Christi, Texas. According to news accounts from Selena's murder trial, her father Abraham Quintanilla Jr. received many concerns about Saldvar's weak managerial skills and inability to deliver fan club memorabilia to paying clients in the months leading up to her death; he researched the situation and found that Saldvar had embezzled more than $30,000 from the boutiques and fan club. About the fact that Quintanilla Jr. approached Saldvar and advised his daughter to sever all ties with her, Selena was reluctant. On March 31, Selena accompanied Saldvar to the Days Inn motel in Corpus Christi, where she was sleeping. Saldvar allegedly took a handgun from her bag and shot Selena in the shoulder after the singer demanded financial statements or other facts to disprove the embezzlement charges. Selena was able to sprint to the hotel lobby and scream for assistance, but she soon collapsed and was pronounced dead at Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital. Meanwhile, Saldvar managed to leave the crime scene, but was caught in a nine-hour standoff with police and FBI agents, during which she pointed the pistol at herself and talked on the phone with negotiators tearfully for several hours, according to news. She was eventually apprehended, charged, and sentenced to life in jail in October 1995, with the option of parole after 30 years, in 2025.

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With the first part of Selena: The Series arriving on Netflix Dec. 4, not only will longtime fans of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez get their deepest dive yet into the acclaimed Tejano singer's life, but a whole new generation of soon-to-be Selena stans will also get to experience the magic of "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom," "Como la Flor," and all those rhinestone-encrusted bustiers and bra tops for the first time. Before we all dive headfirst into the show, starring Christian Serratos in the titular role, a quick recap of Selena's career highlights: She made history at the 1994 Grammys by becoming the first female Tejano artist to win Best Mexican/American Album, was the first Latin artist to have an album debut at #1 on the Billboard 200, and, with approximately 30 million records sold worldwide, is credited with bringing Tejano music into the mainstream.

Sadly, despite these and so many other massive successes throughout her short but groundbreaking solo career, the story of Selena's life is often overshadowed by that of her tragic death in 1995, when she was just 23 years old. Here's the full story of Selena's death, and its impact in the U.S. and around the world.

How did Selena die?

The Grammy winner was shot and killed by Yolanda Saldívar on March 31, 1995, barely two weeks before her 24th birthday. Saldívar was a close friend of Selena, and worked as both the creator and president of her fan club and the manager of her Selena Etc. boutiques in San Antonio and Corpus Christi, Texas. In the months leading up to Selena's death, however, her father Abraham Quintanilla Jr. received several complaints of Saldívar's poor management skills and failure to send fan club memorabilia to paying customers; he investigated the situation and discovered that Saldívar had embezzled more than $30,000 from the boutiques and fan club, per news reports from her murder trial.

Though Quintanilla Jr. confronted Saldívar and warned his daughter to cut off all ties with her, Selena was hesitant to do so. On March 31, Selena accompanied Saldívar to the Days Inn motel where she was staying in Corpus Christi. The singer reportedly asked Saldívar for financial statements or other evidence that would disprove the embezzlement claims, prompting Saldívar to take a handgun from her purse and shoot Selena in the shoulder. Though Selena was able to run to the motel lobby to cry for help, she quickly collapsed and was pronounced dead on arrival at Corpus Christi Memorial Hospital.

Meanwhile, Saldívar attempted to flee the crime scene, but soon found herself stuck in a nine-hour standoff with the police and FBI, during which she pointed the gun at herself and tearfully spoke on the phone with negotiators for several hours, according to reports. She was ultimately arrested, convicted, and, in October 1995, sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years, in 2025.

What was the immediate aftermath of Selena's death?

Selena's funeral took place in Corpus Christi, her hometown, on April 3. The day before, an open-casket viewing attended by up to 40,000 fans was held at the Bayfront Auditorium, which has since been renamed Selena Auditorium. Her funeral was broadcast live on the radio, attended by approximately 600 guests, and held at Seaside Memorial Park.

The tragedy was front-page news for days, and is credited with the creation of People en Español, Newsweek en Español, and Latina magazine after demonstrating to publishers the size of the Hispanic news market. Countless celebrities publicly paid their respects to Selena, with Gloria Estefan and Madonna reportedly among those who contacted the Quintanilla family directly to offer their condolences.

Additionally, shortly before what would have been Selena's 24th birthday, then-Gov. George W. Bush declared April 16 "Selena Day" in Texas. In 2019, local lawmakers filed legislation to make Selena Day an official state holiday, rather than just an honorary one.

How has Selena's legacy continued?

In the 25 years since Selena's death, her music has remained widely popular. In fact, upon the release of her crossover album Dreaming of You in July 1995, Selena became only the third woman to sell more than 300,000 copies of an album in its first week, following Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey. The album was also the first by a Hispanic artist to debut in the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart, and was the first posthumously released solo album to reach the milestone. In 2017, with nearly 3 million copies sold, Dreaming of You was found to be the best-selling Latin album of all time in the U.S.

Beyond the continued relevance of her music, the singer has been further immortalized in countless ways: with a 1997 biopic starring Jennifer Lopez, her 1995 induction into the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame, a 2005 tribute concert by her family and former band members, her 2017 addition to the Hollywood Walk of Fame-which had the largest audience of any other star-unveiling ceremony-and her commemorative MAC Cosmetics collection in 2016, which became the best-selling celebrity makeup line of all time, sparking the release of a follow-up collection this year, to name just a few.

And in her hometown, a life-size bronze sculpture of Selena named "Mirador de la Flor" was installed on the Corpus Christi Bayfront. The city also hosted the " Fiesta de la Flor" two-day festival in her honor every year between 2015 and 2020.

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The Tragic True Story of Selena Quintanilla's Death

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With the first part of Selena: The Series arriving on Netflix Dec. 4, not only will longtime fans of Selena Quintanilla-Pérez get their deepest dive yet into the acclaimed Tejano singer's life, but a whole new generation of soon-to-be Selena stans will also get to experience the magic of "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom," "Como la Flor," and all those rhinestone-encrusted bustiers and bra tops for the first time.

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About the fact that the central person responsible for creating it—a man who had reached the United States on an Iraqi passport under the name Ramzi Yousef—was engaged in another massive bombing plot two years later, few Americans are aware of the true scale of the disruptive ambition behind that blast. Yousef and his allies tried to blow up eleven US passenger planes in one glorious day of jihadist fury in January 1995. The explosives were to be made of a liquid explosive that can pass through metal detectors at airports. Yousef, however, ignited a fire while mixing his chemical concoction in a Manila apartment. He was forced to escape and left behind a device containing the material that led to his arrest in Pakistan a month later. A letter threatening Filipino rights if a comrade detained in detention was not released was discovered among the objects contained in his possession. "The potential to make and use pesticides and radioactive gas... for use against sensitive institutions and civilian communities, as well as drinking water supplies," it said. He was extradited quickly and is currently in American custody, pending trial this spring. The schemes of Ramzi Yousef were the most daring terrorist plots ever attempted against the United States.

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The National Interest, Winter, 1995/96
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMB:
Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why It Matters

by Laurie Mylroie

ACCORDING TO THE presiding judge in last year's trial, the bombing of New York's World Trade Center on February 26, 1993 was meant to topple the city's tallest tower onto its twin, amid a cloud of cyanide gas. Had the attack gone as planned, tens of thousands of Americans would have died. Instead, as we know, one tower did not fall on the other, and, rather than vaporizing, the cyanide gas burnt up in the heat of the explosion. "Only" six people died.

Few Americans are aware of the true scale of the destructive ambition behind that bomb, this despite the fact that two years later, the key figure responsible for building it--a man who had entered the United Stares on an Iraqi passport under the name of Ramzi Yousef--was involved in another stupendous bombing conspiracy. In January 1995, Yousef and his associates plotted to blow up eleven U.S. commercial aircraft in one spectacular day of terrorist rage. The bombs were to be made of a liquid explosive designed to pass through airport metal detectors. But while mixing his chemical brew in a Manila apartment, Yousef started a fire. He was forced to flee, leaving behind a computer that contained the information that led to his arrest a month later in Pakistan. Among the items found in his possession was a letter threatening Filipino interests if a comrade held in custody were not released. It claimed the "ability to make and use chemicals and poisonous gas... for use against vital institutions and residential populations and the sources of drinking water." [1] Quickly extradited, he is now in U.S. custody awaiting trial this spring.

Ramzi Yousef's plots were the most ambitious terrorist conspiracies ever attempted against the United States. But who is he? Is he a free-lance bomber? A deranged but highly-skilled veteran of the Muslim jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan? Is he an Arab, or of some other Middle Eastern ethnicity? Is there an organization--perhaps even a state--behind his work?

These questions have an obvious bearing not only on past events but on possible future ones as well. [2] It is important to know who Ramzi Yousef is and who his "friends" are, because if he is not just a bomber-for-hire, or an Islamic militant loosely connected to other Muslim fundamentalists, Yousef's "friends" could still prove very dangerous to the United States. It is of considerable interest, therefore, that a very persuasive case can be made that Ramzi Yousef is an Iraqi intelligence agent, and that his bombing conspiracies were meant as Saddam Hussein's revenge for the Gulf War. If so, and if, as U.S. officials strongly suspect, Baghdad still secretly possesses biological warfare agents, then we may still not have heard the last from Saddam Hussein.

This essay will focus on three points. First, it will argue that, as things stand now, coordination between the Justice Department and the relevant national security agencies is such that the latter--and thus national security itself gets very short shrift when it comes to dealing with terror incidents perpetrated on U.S. soil. Second, it will look afresh at the evidence from the World Trade Center bombing case and suggest that the most logical explanation of the evidence points to Iraqi state sponsorship. Third, it will assay briefly what dangers the Iraqi regime may still pose to the United States should this analysis prove correct.

A High Wall

THE SUGGESTION THAT Iraq might well have been behind Ramzi Yousef's exploits may initially strike many as implausible. Wouldn't the U.S. government investigation of the World Trade Center bombing have uncovered evidence to that effect, evidence that the press, in turn, would have broadcast far and wide? Wouldn't America's robust anti-terrorist intelligence capacities have focused on such suspicions long ago?

While these are reasonable questions, they reveal a lack of understanding about how the U.S. government works when legal and national security issues of this special sort overlap. A high wall, in fact, stands between the Justice Department, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, on the one hand, and the national security agencies on the other. Once arrests are made, the trials of individual perpetrators take bureaucratic precedence over everything else. The Justice Department inherits primary investigatory jurisdiction, and the business of the Justice Department is above all the prosecution and conviction of individual criminals. Once that process is underway, the Justice Department typically denies information to the national security bureaucracies, taking the position that passing on information might "taint the evidence" and affect prospects for obtaining convictions. [3]

In effect, the Justice Department puts the prosecution of individual perpetrators--with all the rights to a fair trial guaranteed by the U.S. judicial system--above America's national security interest in determining who may be behind terrorist attacks. Questions of state sponsorship that are of pressing interest to national security agencies are typically relegated to a distant second place, or never properly addressed at all, because the national security agencies are denied critical information. In particular, whenever early arrests are made regarding a terrorist incident on American soil, the U.S. government cannot properly address both the national security question of state sponsorship and the criminal question of the guilt or innocence of individual perpetrators at the same time.

This is precisely what happened in the World Trade Center bombing. In the case of Ramzi Yousef, the perfectly reasonable questions posed above about who this man is and who may sponsor him have never been properly investigated. Instead of the appropriately trained people conducting a comprehensive investigation, the World Trade Center bombing was followed by an undercover operation, in which an informant of dubious provenance led a handful of local Muslims in a new bombing conspiracy, aimed at the United Nations and other New York landmarks. For this conspiracy Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman and nine others were found guilty in early October 1995. Yet none of those in the trial of Sheikh Omar et al., as it is formally called, was accused of actually participating in the World Trade Center bombing.[4] They were only charged with conspiracy regarding it. The government contended that other followers of Sheikh Omar--four fundamentalists who stood trial in 1994--were actually responsible for puffing it into effect.

But what if Ramzi Yousef, who eluded the grasp of U.S. authorities until after his second bombing conspiracy, is neither a follower of Sheikh Omar nor a Muslim fundamentalist? That if he is an Iraqi agent? From a legal perspective--as the judge in that trial advised the defense team--whether state sponsorship played a role in the World Trade Center bombing was irrelevant to the guilt or innocence of Sheikh Omar et al. And indeed, the prosecution did not need to address the question of whether the World Trade Center bombing had state sponsorship in order to obtain the convictions sought against Sheikh Omar and the others.

Indeed, that state sponsorship can be irrelevant to a criminal prosecution was explained most clearly by the federal prosecutors in the New York bombing conspiracies, the lead prosecutor in the trial of Sheikh Omar et al., and the lead prosecutor in last year's Trade Center bombing trial, who will also prosecute Ramzi Yousef. When I put it to them that Iraq was probably behind the Trade Center bombing, they replied, "You may be right, but we don't do state sponsorship. We prosecute individuals." Asked who does "do" state sponsorship, they answered, "Washington." "Who in Washington?" No one seemed to know.[6]

Yet by responding to state-sponsored terrorism solely by arresting and trying individual perpetrators, the U.S. government, in effect, invites such states to commit acts of terror in such a way as to leave behind a few relatively minor figures to be arrested, tried, and convicted. Done adroitly, this makes it unlikely that the larger, more important, and more difficult question of state sponsorship will ever be addressed.

The problem is illustrated vividly in the case of Ramzi Yousef since his arrest in February 1995. The Justice Department has passed on very little information to other bureaucracies. The FBI's typical response to any question about Yousef is: "We can't tell you much because of the trial." [7] As a result, the State Department, which is responsible for determining whether a terrorist act had state sponsorship, lacks the most basic information-- even, for example, a point as simple as what passport Yousef was traveling on when he was arrested in Islamabad.

The details of the World Trade Center case are chilling. From the outset, the Justice Department refused to share key information with the national security agencies. The government had two sets of relevant information--foreign intelligence, gathered by the CIA from watching terrorist states such as Iran and Iraq, and evidence gathered by the FBI largely within the United Stares for use in the trial. The FBI flatly told the national security bureaucracies that there was "no evidence" of state sponsorship in the World Trade Center bombing. When the national security agencies asked to see the evidence themselves, the FBI replied, "No, this is a criminal matter. We're handling it." Thus, all that the national security agencies had available to decide the question of state sponsorship was foreign intelligence they themselves had collected.

But many cases of stare-sponsored terrorism cannot be cracked by means of intelligence alone. The crucial element linking the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 to Libya, for example, was not intelligence but a piece of physical evidence--a microchip, part of the bomb's timing device, that could be tied to other bombs built by Libyan agents.

After the World Trade Center bombing, the FBI was the only bureaucracy with both the intelligence and the evidence. Even if the FBI did make a serious effort to examine the evidence for state sponsorship--and it is not clear that it did--the Bureau alone is not competent to carry out such an investigation. "They're head hunters", one official in Pentagon Counterterrorism remarked--that is, they are oriented to the arrest of individuals. A State Department expert described the FBI's new Office of Radical Fundamentalism as "a joke", bereft of any genuine Middle East expertise.

But the more fundamental problem is that the Justice Department in Washington seems not to have been interested in pursuing the question of state sponsorship. In fact, the New York FBI office suspected an Iraqi connection early on, but the Washington brass seemingly wanted to tell America that they had already cracked the case and caught most of the perpetrators. It is always easier to go after the small fry than to catch the big fish, and law enforcement is ever vulnerable to the temptation to cut off a conspiracy investigation at the most convenient point.

Thus, five weeks after the World Trade Center bombing, four Arabs were under arrest. The mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, had fled. Still, at that point in early April 1993, the FBI proclaimed that it had captured most of those involved. The bombing, it claimed, was the work of a loose group of fundamentalists with no ties to any state. The predictable media frenzy followed and, perhaps as a result, some obvious questions were not asked. How could the government know so early in the investigation that those it had arrested had no ties to any state? If the government knew so much so soon, then why did one of those arrested never stand trial for the bombing, and why were three others indicted much later? In short, the Justice Department determined that the bombing had no state sponsorship even before it decided definitively who had been involved.

Moreover, by April it was impossible to have conducted a sufficiently thorough investigation. Such an investigation required, at a minimum, a meticulous examination of all records associated with the defendants to insure that they had had no contact with foreign intelligence agencies--or at least that none could be found. That process simply could not have been accomplished in five weeks. And it must be kept in mind that, at the time, the mastermind of the bomb was a fugitive about whom almost nothing was known. How could anyone therefore declare confidently that he was not a foreign agent, especially in light of the fact that he had entered the United States on an Iraqi passport and had been known among the New York fundamentalists as "Rashid, the Iraqi"?

Ironically, this sort of problem would not have arisen had the bombing occurred abroad. In such cases there are usually two separate investigations by two different bureaucracies, one to determine state sponsorship, the other to catch the individuals responsible. After the bombing of Pan Am 103, for example, the CLA led an inter-agency intelligence investigation addressing the question of state sponsorship. There was also a separate criminal investigation, headed by the FBI, aimed at individual perpetrators.

But there was no intelligence investigation of the World Trade Center bombing. The CIA is, after all, prohibited from operating in America. Of course, a crack inter-agency team could have been established to examine the question of state sponsorship. But Clinton administration officials set up no such team.

In September 1995, the State Department forwarded to Congress the report of an independent panel, established to examine whether mistakes in security training had contributed to the March 8 assassination of two U.S. consular officials in Karachi--apparent retaliation for Ramzi Yousef's extradition. The report expressed concern about the FBI's lack of cooperation with the national security agencies. Clearly, discontent with the FBI is growing among those agencies as issues such as international crime--and with them the Bureau's international role--assume a mare prominent role in the post-Cold War world. Indeed, one State Department official described the FBI'S unwillingness to share information as "the train wreck coming"--meaning that given the FBI's lack of expertise in international politics, there may well come a time when the Bureau will be sitting on information that, in the hands of others, could have been used to avert a disaster.

One may indeed ask whether the World Trade Center bombing itself is not a harbinger of the train wreck coming. For if Saddam Hussein was behind it, then the Justice Department, in effect, has blinded the national security bureaucracies to a serious danger, namely the possibility that in the extreme Iraq might use biological agents, whether for terrorism in America or in the context of military' action in the region, possibly involving U.S. troops.

Of course, that is an important "if." It is to that issue we now turn.

Dramatis Personae

Ramzi Yousef, a.k.a. Abdul Basit Karim -the key man; likely Iraqi agent.

El Sayid Nosair--murderer of Rabbi Meir Kahane, bomb plot initiator.

Emad Salem--FBI informant with ties to Egyptian intelligence.

Mohammed Salameh--Palestinian fundamentalist, Nosair accomplice and early plotter; left a trail of phone calls to Iraq.

Musab Yasin--Iraqi with New Jersey apartment where Yousef first went.

Abdul Rahman Yasin--Musab's brother, led FBI to apartment where bomb was made; employee of Iraqi government; indicted fugitive, presently in Baghdad.

Nidal Ayyad--Palestinian fundamentalist convicted in the World Trade Center bombing.

Mahmud Abu Halima--Egyptian fundamentalist cab driver convicted in the World Trade Center bombing

Eyyad Ismail--Palestinian from Jordan charged with having driven the van.

Forty-Six Calls to Iraq

ALTHOUGH THE national security agencies never received the World Trade Center evidence, at the conclusion of a trial evidence becomes public. Anyone can examine it, and I did so meticulously. The raw data consist mostly of telephone records, passports, and airplane tickets. Such data reveal nothing directly about state sponsorship, but under close analysis certain facts begin to stand out and certain patterns emerge. And it helps to know the Middle East well.

The story begins in November 1990 when an Egyptian fundamentalist, El Sayid Nosair, shot and killed Meir Kahane, an extreme right-wing Israeli-American, in Manhattan. A year later, in November 1991, Nosair's trial became a cause celebre among local fundamentalists, who turned out in force to support their "martyr." Planted among them was an Egyptian, Emad Salem, working as an FBI informant, even as he maintained ties to Egyptian intelligence. In December, the jury returned a bizarre verdict, acquitting Nosair of murder and finding him guilty on lesser charges. An outraged judge gave Nosair a maximum sentence on those lesser charges, and sent him to Attica.

The fundamentalists continued to support Nosair, arranging bus trips from their mosques to visit him in prison. Salem, the FBI plant, remained among them. In early June 1992, with Salem acting as an agent provocateur, Nosair convinced his friends to execute a bomb plot. He wanted them to make twelve pipe bombs, to be used for assassinating his judge and a Brooklyn assemblyman, the others to be used against Jewish targets. A cousin was to organize the plot, and Salem was to build the bombs.

A twenty-six year old Palestinian, Mohammad Salameh, was soon recruited into the plot. Salameh comes from a long line of terrorists on his mother's side. His maternal grandfather fought in the 1936 Arab revolt against British rule in Palestine, and even as an old man joined the PLO and managed to get himself jailed by the Israelis. A maternal uncle was arrested in 1968 for terrorism and served eighteen years in an Israeli prison before he was released and deported, making his way to Baghdad where he became number two in the "Western Sector", a PLO terrorist unit under Iraqi influence.

Despite this pedigree, Salameh himself is naive and manipulable. When one considers that he was arrested in the process of returning to collect the deposit on the van he had rented to carry the Trade Center bomb, it is not so surprising that on June 10, soon after being recruited into Nosair's plot, Salameh made the first of forty-six calls to Iraq, the vast majority to his terrorist uncle in Baghdad. We can only speculate about what Salameh told his uncle, but it seems very likely that he spoke about the bold new project Nosair was organizing, perhaps seeking his help and advice. Salameh's telephone bills suggest that the pipe bombing plot was one of the most exciting events in his life: In six weeks he ran up a bill of over four thousand dollars and lost his phone service.

Iraq is one of the few remaining Stalinist states. Iraqis routinely assume their telephones are bugged, and are even cautious about discussing sensitive issues in their own homes. The more significant the person, the greater the likelihood his activities are monitored--at least that is what Baghdadis assume. My own experience in Baghdad makes clear that when Iraqis want to be sure that a conversation is not monitored, it takes place out of doors. It is thus more than likely that Iraqi intelligence learned of Nosair's bombing plot and Salameh's participation in it through Salameh's phone calls to his uncle. In any event, key preparatory steps to the World Trade Center bombing were taken within days of Salameh's first call-including steps taken in Baghdad.

On June 21, an Iraqi living in Baghdad, Abdul Rahman Yasin (subsequently an indicted fugitive in the Trade Center bombing) appeared at the U.S. embassy in Amman asking for a U.S. passport. Born in America, Abdul Rahman received his passport, which he soon used to travel to this country.

Just at this crucial point, unfortunately, the FBI lost track of the Nosair-Salameh conspiracy. It did not fully trust its informant, Emad Salem, and Salem's ties to Egyptian intelligence; the Bureau severed relations with him in early July when he refused to follow its procedures relating to criminal investigations.

Salameh's phone bills and other evidence raise the distinct possibility that, Iraqi intelligence having learned of Nosair's plans from Salameh's calls to his uncle, Baghdad decided to help out, transforming the plot in the process. If so, the speed of the reaction suggests that Iraqi intelligence may have already been planning some operation against America, and that Salameh1s calls to his uncle provided it with a fortuitous means of carrying it out. Here probably lies the source of Ramzi Yousef s exploits in America.

Enter Ramzi Yousef

ON SEPTEMBER 1, 1992, Ramzi Yousef arrived at JFK airport. He presented an Iraqi passport without a U.S. visa, was briefly detained (and fingerprinted) for illegal entry, and granted asylum pending a hearing. Yousef went to stay at the apartment of Musab Yasin, an Iraqi living in Jersey City. So too did Abdul Rahman Yasin, Musab's younger brother, who arrived in America from Iraq soon after Yousef. (Musab had an unlisted telephone number under an Israeli-sounding alias, Josie Hadas.)

Musab lived in the same building as Mohammad Salameh. Many young Arab men used their two apartments, praying and eating together; relations were so close that the apartments were connected by an intercom. Once established within this group, Ramzi Yousef befriended Salameh, and the two left to share an apartment elsewhere in Jersey City. From then on, the impressionable Salameh was under Yousef s wing.

Although the principal conspirators had been in place since September, it was not until after the U.S. elections on November 3 that Yousef began to prepare the World Trade Center bomb. In mid-November the first of many calls to chemical companies appears on his phone bills. At the same time, Yousef also began calling surgical supply companies for the gloves, masks, and rubber tubing he needed to make the bomb. In the meantime, two other local fundamentalists were recruited into the plot, Nidal Ayyad and Mahmud Abu Halima. Ayyad, a Palestinian, was the same age as Salameh and Salameh's friend. Abu Halima, a thirty-four year old Egyptian cab driver, was a friend of Nosair. Abu Halima was older and generally savvier than the two Palestinians.

In January 1993, Yousef and Salameh moved into another Jersey City apartment where the bomb was actually built. Set well back from the street, the building provided seclusion. On February 21 a twenty-one year old Palestinian named Eyyad Ismail arrived from Dallas. Ismail is charged with having driven the bomb-laden van.[8] On February 23, Salameh went to a Ryder rental agency to rent the van to carry the bomb. On the morning of February 26, the conspirators gathered at a local Shell gas station where they topped up the tank--one last explosive touch--before driving to Manhattan. Shortly after noon, the bomb went off, on--let it be well noted--the second anniversary of the ending of the Gulf War.

That evening Salameh drove Yousef and Ismail to JFK airport; Yousef escaped to Pakistan on falsified travel documents, and Ismail flew home to Jordan. But Salameh looks to have been deliberately left behind by Yousef, not provided with money he needed for a plane ticket. Salameh had a ticket to Amsterdam on Royal Jordanian fight 262, which continues on to Amman, dated for March 5, but it was an infant ticket that had cost him only $65. While Salameh had been able to use this ticket to get himself a Dutch visa, he could not actually travel on it Needing more money for an adult fare, he tried to get his van deposit back by telling the rental agency that the van had been stolen. With either desperate or inane persistence, he returned three times before he was finally arrested on March 4.

Salameh had used Musab Yasin's phone number when renting the van, and Abdul Rahman Yasin was picked up the same day in a sweep of sites associated with Salameh. Abdul Rahman was taken to New Jersey FBI headquarters in Newark. He is reported to have been extremely cool, as a trained intelligence agent would be. He was helpful to investigators who themselves faced tremendous pressure to produce answers. He told them, for instance, the location of the apartment that was used to make the bomb, a key bit of information. They thanked him for his cooperation and let him walk out. This, although he had arrived just six months before from Iraq, and might well attempt to return there. And indeed, the very next day, Abdul Rahman Yasin boarded Royal Jordanian 262 to Amman, the same plane Salameh had hoped to catch. From Amman he went on to Baghdad. An ABC news stringer saw him there last year, outside his father's house, and learned from neighbors that he worked for the Iraqi government.

Meanwhile, as U.S. authorities searched for Abdul Rahman Yasin in March 1993, after his "helpful" session with the FBI and before they knew for certain that he had fled, an FBI agent who had worked with Emad Salem in June 1992 speculated:

"Do you ever think that Iraqi intelligence might have known of these people who were willing to do something crazy, and that Iraqi intelligence found them out and encouraged them to do this as a retaliation for the bombing of Iraq. . . . So the people who are left holding the bag here in America are Egyptian. . . or Palestinian. . . . But the other people we are looking for, Abdul Rahman, he is gone. . I hate to think what's going to happen if this guy turns out to be. . an Iraqi intelligence operative...and these people were used." [9]

Mahmud Abu Halima had similar thoughts. As he told a prison companion who later turned state's evidence:

"The planned act was not as big as what subsequently occurred. . . Yousef showed up on the scene. and escalated the initial plot. . . . Yousef used [them]. . .as pawns and then immediately after the blast left the country." [10]

That, indeed, is the most straightforward explanation of the World Trade Center bombing: that it was an Iraqi intelligence operation, led by Ramzi Yousef, with the local fundamentalists serving first as aides and then as diversionary dupes.

Since Yousef's arrest and extradition to the United States, the evidence for this explanation has, if anything, grown stronger. First of all, he is clearly no fundamentalist. According to neighbors, he had a Filipina girlfriend and enjoyed Manila's raucous night life.[11] Yousef's nationality and ethnicity have also become known: He is a Pakistani Baluch.

The Baluch are a distinct ethnic group, speaking their own language, one of several Middle Eastern peoples without their own homeland. They live in eastern Iran and western Pakistan in inhospitable desert terrain over which neither Tehran nor Islamabad exercises much control. Baluchistan is a haven for smuggling, both of drugs and of arms. The Baluch are Sunni and are at sharp odds with Tehran's Shia clerical regime. Through Iraq's many years of conflict with Iran, first in the early 1970s and then during the Iran-Iraq war a decade later, Iraqi intelligence developed close ties with the Baluch on both sides of the Iranian-Pakistani border. Above all, it used them to carry out terrorism against Iran.

Yousef's associates in Pakistan, too, were anti-Shia. This fact, taken together with his Baluch ethnicity, make it nearly impossible that Iran could be behind Yousef. The most recent inquiries, made since Yousef's arrest, have reduced the question to two possibilities: He is a free-lancer connected to a loose network of fundamentalists; or he worked for Iraq. [12]

Of Passports and Fingerprints

THE SINGLE MOST important piece of evidence pointing to Iraq is the passport on which Yousef fled America. It was no ordinary passport.

On November 9,1992, just after the final green light for the bombing had been given, Yousef reported to Jersey City., police that he had lost his passport. He claimed to be Abdul Basit Mahmud Abdul Karim, a Pakistani born and reared in Kuwait. Then, between December 3 and December 27, Yousef made a number of calls to Baluchistan. Several of them were conference calls to a few key numbers, a geographical plotting of which suggests that they were related to Yousef's probable escape route--through Pakistani and Iranian Baluchistan--across the Arabian Sea to Oman, after which the "telephone trail" ends. After Yousef s arrest, a National Security Council staffer confirmed to me that Yousef had indeed fled from the United States through Baluchistan.

On December 31, 1992, Yousef went to the Pakistani consulate in New York with photocopies of Abdul Basit's current and previous passports. Consistent with his story to police in Jersey City, he claimed to have lost his passport and asked for a new one. The consulate suspected his non-original documentation enough to deny him a new passport. But it did provide him a six-month, temporary passport and told him to straighten things out when he returned "home." This turned out to be good enough for the purpose at hand.

By now it should be clear that the World Trade Center bomber's real name is probably neither Ramzi Yousef nor Abdul Basit. After all, would someone intending to blow up New York's tallest tower go to such trouble to get a passport under his own name? Yousef was a man of many passports; he had three on his person when he was arrested in Pakistan. Rather, it seems that Ramzi Yousef risked going to the Pakistani consulate with such flimsy documents because he wanted investigators to conclude that he was in fact Abdul Basit, and so would stop trying to determine his real identity. And that is pretty much what happened.

But why Abdul Basit Karim? Here we come to one of the most intriguing and vital aspects of the case. Because there really was an Abdul Basit Karim, a Pakistani born in Kuwait, who later attended Swansea Institute, a technical school in Wales. After graduating in 1989 with a two-year degree in computer-aided electronic engineering, he returned to a job in Kuwait's planning ministry. As Abdul Basit and his family were permanent residents of Kuwait, Kuwait's Interior Ministry maintained files on them. But the files for Abdul Basit and his parents in Kuwait's Interior Ministry have been tampered with. Key documents from the Kuwaiti files on Abdul Basit and his parents are missing. There should be copies of the front pages of the passports, including a picture, a notation of height, and so forth, but that material is gone. There is also information in the file that should not be there, especially a notation stating that Abdul Basit and his family left Kuwait for Iraq on August 26, 1990, transiting to Iran at Salamchah (a crossing point near Basra) on their way to Pakistani Baluchistan, where, according to the file, they now live.

Who put that notation into Abdul Basit's file and why? Consider the circumstances of the moment. The Kuwaiti government had ceased to exist, and Iraq was an occupation authority; bent on establishing control over a hostile population amid near-universal condemnation, as an American-led coalition threatened war. The situation was chaotic as hundreds of thousands of people were fleeing for their lives. While the citizens of Western countries were pawns in a high stakes game, held hostage by Iraq, little attention was paid to the multitude of Third World nationals bent on escape. It truly boggles the imagination to believe that under such circumstances an Iraqi bureaucrat was sitting calmly in Kuwait's Interior Ministry taking down the flight plans--including the itinerary and final destination--of otherwise non-descript Baluchis fleeing Kuwait. Rather, it looks as if Iraqi intelligence put that information into Abdul Basit's file to make it appear that he left Kuwait rather than died there, and that, like Ramzi Yousef, he too was Baluch.

Moreover, Iraqi intelligence apparently switched fingerprint cards, removing the original with Abdul Basit's fingerprints and replacing it with one bearing those of Yousef. Fingerprints are decisive for investigators because no two people's match. But the very fact that fingerprints are so decisive makes them the perfect candidate for careful manipulation. Thus, after U.S. authorities learned that Yousef had fled as Abdul Basit, they sent his fingerprints (taken by the Immigration and Naturalization Service at JFF airport when he was briefly detained for illegal entry) to Kuwait, asking if they matched those of Abdul Basit. When the Kuwaitis said that they did, everyone assumed the question settled--forgetting that Kuwait's files were not secure during the Iraqi occupation.

Pakistan also maintains files on those of its citizens permanently resident abroad, at the embassy in the country in which they live. On August 9, Baghdad ordered all embassies in Iraq's "nineteenth province" to close. Most did, including the Pakistani embassy. The files on Abdul Basit and his family that should be in the Pakistani embassy in Kuwait are missing. The Pakistani government now has no record of the family.

What does all this suggest? To me it suggests that Abdul Basit and his family were in Kuwait when Iraq invaded in August 1990; that they probably died then; and that Iraqi intelligence then tampered with their files to create an alternative identity for Ramzi Yousef. Clearly, only Iraq could reasonably have: 1) known of, or caused, the death of Abdul Basit and his family; 2) tampered with Kuwait's Interior Ministry files, above all switching the fingerprint cards; and 3) filched the files on Abdul Basit and his family from the Pakistani embassy in Kuwait.

Of course, the best way to verify or falsify this would be to check with people who knew Abdul Basit before August 1990. To this end, Brad White, a former Senate Judiciary Committee investigator and CBS newsman, contacted an overseas source he knew in the United Kingdom who had looked into the matter. Two people had a good memory of Abdul Basit but, shown photos of Yousef, were unable to make a positive identification. They both felt that while there was some similarity in looks, it was not the same person. "Our feeling is that Ramzi Yousef is probably not Basit", White was told.[13]

Logic and circumstance also suggest the same conclusion. Is it likely to be mere coincidence, after all, that during Iraq's occupation of Kuwait key documents were removed from Abdul Basit's and his parents files, while the same files were filched in their entirety from the Pakistani embassy? Moreover, Abdul Basit had no criminal record in Britain, nor did he or his parents have any security record in Kuwait. The first concrete knowledge we have of Ramzi Yousef/Abdul Basit comes in early 1991, around the end of the Gulf war when he showed up in the Philippines seeking contact with a Muslim group there. Introduced as "the chemist", he proposed to collaborate in

bombing conspiracies. Now, how did a young man who had led a seemingly normal life up until August 1990 suddenly become a world class terrorist six months after Iraq invaded his country of residence? Where did he get such sophisticated explosives training in just six months? (The real Abdul Basit's degree, remember, was in electronic engineering, not chemistry, which Swansea Institute does not even teach.)

And where are Abdul Basit's parents? They never returned to Kuwait after its liberation, nor have they appeared anywhere else. Did they too take up a life of crime after decades of abiding by the law?

Ramzi Yousef's arrest has made it easy enough to resolve a key question and perhaps produce important evidence implicating Iraq in the World Trade Center bombing: Is "Ramzi Yousef" really Abdul Basit or not? Let those who remember Abdul Basit from before August 1990 meet Yousef in person and tell us. It sounds simple and logical, but strangely, the Justice Department has shown no interest in arranging such a meeting. Moreover, it has decided to try, the bomber as Ramzi Yousef even though no one, including Yousef by now, maintains that that is his real name. If the government believes that Yousef is really Abdul Basit, why doesn't it try him as Abdul Basit? Why is the Justice Department uninterested even in definitively determining his identity, even though doing so might help get to the bottom of the matter. I recently asked a Justice Department official, who maintains his confident view that Yousef is indeed Abdul Basit, "Why don't you bring the people who knew Abdul Basit to the prison to meet Yousef, so they can say for sure if they are the same?" "But you", I was told, "are interested in an intelligence question." Earlier I had been told, "It does not matter what we call him. We just try a body."

And so back we come to the high wall. As before, those who have the information about Ramzi Yousef and his bombing conspiracies are not concerned with the question of state sponsorship, or at least consider it secondary to their trials; while those who are concerned with state sponsorship are denied the information that they need to investigate the question properly.

Threats From Baghdad

MOST MEMBERS OF the U.S. national security bureaucracies think that Saddam Hussein has largely lain low since the Gulf War, constrained by economic sanctions and swift American reactions to his occasional feints to the south. But if in February 1993, Saddam ordered his agents to try to topple New York's tallest tower onto its twin, and if, in January 1995, Iraq sponsored an effort to destroy eleven U.S. airplanes in the Far East, then Saddam has not been quiescent.

This, simply put, is why it is important to find out who Ramzi Yousef is and who may have put him up to his murderous work. Maybe Iraq had nothing to do with him, despite all the circumstantial evidence suggesting otherwise. But if it did, then the otherwise peculiar, bombastic, and extremely violent statements emanating from Baghdad might make more sense than they at first seem to.

In the fall of 1994, Baghdad's official press, in essence, threatened that Saddam might use his remaining unconventional agents, biological and chemical, for terrorism in America, or in missiles delivered against his enemies in the region if and when he became fed up with sanctions.[14] On September 29, 1994, following an otherwise cryptic statement of Saddam Hussein's, the government newspaper, Babil, warned: "Does the United States realize the meaning of every Iraqi becoming a missile that can cross to countries and cities?"

Other threats followed almost daily;

When peoples reach the verge of collective death, they will be able to spread death to all. [15]
When one realizes that death is one s inexorable fate, there remains nothing to deter one from taking the most risky steps to influence the course of events. [16]

We seek to tell the United States and its agents that the Iraqi patience has run out and that the perpetuation of the crime of annihilating the Iraqis will trigger crises whose nature and consequences are known only to God.[17]

These statements occurred in the context of Saddam's second and abortive lunge at Kuwait, which was thwarted by the swift U.S. deployment to the region. Saddam then turned around and formally recognized Kuwait, removing what then seemed to be the last major obstacle to lifting sanctions, and the Iraqi press soon began to call 1995, "the year of lifting sanctions."

But that was not to be. The UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) started to uncover evidence of a large, undeclared biological program. As Baghdad's disappointment grew, the Iraqi press began to repeat the threats it had made in the fall. The number two man in Iraq's information ministry warned, "Iraq's abandonment of part of its weapons-the long-range missiles and chemical weapons. . does not mean it has lost everything."[18] Al-Quds al-Arabi, a London paper financed by Baghdad and close to the Iraqi regime, cautioned. "Iraq still has options. But they are all destructive options. Yet if the Americans continue to humiliate them, they will have no option but to bring the temple down on everyone's head."19

After Baghdad succeeded in getting a clean bill of health from UNSCOM in mid-June on its chemical and missile programs, it finally acknowledged in July having had an offensive biological program and having produced anthrax and botulinim. But it denied that it had ever tried to weaponize those agents and, in any case, claimed to have destroyed them in the fall of 1990. The claim was neither credible nor verifiable, particularly as Iraq produced no documents detailing their destruction. Indeed, the Iraqi "revelations" may even have been meant as a threat, an attempt to intimidate the United Nations by hinting at what Baghdad was still capable of doing.[20]

In early August 1995, as Iraq pressed UNSCOM for a clean bill of health on its biological program, Hussein Kamil--Saddam's cousin and son-in-law, and the man responsible for overseeing the build-up of Iraq's unconventional weapons program defected. This precipitated a flood of stunning revelations from Baghdad. They included the admission that Iraq had indeed weaponized botulinim and anthrax. At the very same time that it had earlier claimed to be destroying those agents, the Iraqi regime now acknowledged that it had been stuffing them into bombs and missiles. Yet Iraq still claimed that whatever biological agents it had produced had been destroyed, even as it still failed to produce any documents to confirm their purported destruction.

It looks as if Iraq is holding on to prohibited weapons of mass destruction, even as it insists that sanctions be lifted. Why? In early September, a former adviser to Saddam Hussein predicted that Iraq would not give up any more unconventional agents. Instead, Saddam would probably employ them for blackmail and brinkmanship to get sanctions lifted. And failing that, he would use them.[21] General Wafiq Samarrai, former head of Iraqi military intelligence, told me much the same: "Tell the allies that they have to destroy Iraq's biological agents before Saddam can use them." Iraq could attack its neighbors by missile, or America through terrorism. The United Stares might retaliate with nuclear weapons, but by then "the disaster will already have happened", Samarrai warned. [22]

Would Saddam actually do such a thing? When asked about the possibility of Saddam's using biological agents for terrorism in America, UNSCOM chairman RoIf Ekeus replied, "It is obviously possible."[23] Yet such thoughts seem far from the minds of most U.S. officials, who believe that Saddam is trapped by sanctions and can do no real harm. They feel no urgency about bringing Saddam down; they sense no danger.

Unfinished Business

YET IF RAMZI YOUSEF is in fact an Iraqi intelligence agent, there obviously is a danger. Even if we cannot yet be absolutely certain of this, so many American and allied lives are potentially at stake that it seems the least a responsible government can do is to make every reasonable effort to find out. As Saddam Hussein senses his ever-increasing isolation and sees the prospects for lifting sanctions receding, his desperation may lead him to order other, and even more ghastly, deeds.

If Saddam Hussein still hungers for revenge, the question of Ramzi Yousef's terrorism is much too important to be left solely to the Justice Department, while the FBI continues to withhold critical information from the national security bureaucracies.
The following are among the steps that could and should be taken to address the issue of whether Iraq is behind Ramzi Yousef and to strengthen America's anti-terrorism efforts generally:
Bring those who knew Abdul Basit Karim before August 1990 to meet Yousef in prison and pronounce definitely if they are one and the same man.
Demand the immediate and unconditional extradition of Abdul Rahman Yasin from Baghdad.

Establish a "tiger team", drawn from the best and brightest within the national security bureaucracies, to examine all the information in the U.S. government's possession related to Yousef and his bombing conspiracies. Yousef's apparent use of chemical agents in New York and his threat to use them in the Philippines deserve special attention.

Establish appropriate procedures so that whenever a terrorist attack occurs against U.S. targets that might be state-sponsored, a qualified team will address the question of state sponsorship regardless of whether the terror occurs on U.S. soil or whether early arrests are made.

Individually, the pieces of this puzzle--the elusive identity and affiliation of the World Trade Center bomber; the series of explicit threats against the United States issuing from Baghdad; the question of Iraqi biological capabilities--raise troubling questions. Taken together, they provide the outline of a very frightening possibility. The lack of coordination between the Departments of Justice and State may have created a niche for terrorism within America's borders; while the lack of any adequate response to the two major bombing conspiracies may have already begun to undermine the credibility of the threat of deterrence. So far, State Department officials have been content to leave the issue of Iraq's possible resort to biological terrorism on the back burner, secure in the belief that the threat of nuclear retaliation will be sufficient deterrent. But Saddam has previously miscalculated the American reaction to his provocations. It would be reassuring to know that, somewhere in the policy-apparatus of the State Department, someone is looking seriously at the possibility of future terrorist acts and at the requirements of effective deterrence. Laurie Mylroie, formerly of Harvard University and the U.S. Naval War College. is currently with the Foreign Policy Research Institute of Philadelphia. She was co-author of the bestseller, Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf (Random House 1990), and has just completed a sequel, 'Study of Revenge': Saddam's Terror Against America, January 1993-??
1. Washington Post, October 7,1995.

2. Indeed, there is good reason to suspect an Iraqi hand in the November 13,1995 bombing of the U.S. military office in Riyadh.

3. Interview with Vincent Cannistraro, former Chief of Counterterrorism Operations for the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. There is no formal or legal reason for the FBI position and standard practice. It is largely a matter of protecting bureaucratic turf.

4. Wall Street Journal, September 22,1995. This point was repeatedly made in the New York Times--April 4,7, 9 and 26; June 22 and 28; July 26 and 30; August 2 and 22; October 2, 1995.

5. Ken Wasserman, lawyer for one of the defendants in Sheikh Omar et. al. to the author.

6 Author's meeting with federal prosecutors in New York, January, 1995, arranged by the New York District Attorney's office. Another Trade Center prosecutor, since retired, expressed his frustration with the FBI to a Yale Law School alumni gathering, complaining that they had done no "overall policy review." Allan Gerson, former Chief Counsel of the U.S. delegation to the United Nations (1981-5), to the author-

7. Sources in the State Department, CIA, and Pentagon all told me that those at the working level were not getting information from the FBI on Yousef, and were all very unhappy about it,

8. lsmail was indicted in September 1994 and arrested in August 1995 at his family home in Jordan. He was identified by comparing Yousef's telephone records to the passenger manifests of planes leaving JFK the night of the bombing. I believe that Ismail was probably an unwitting participant and meant to be caught. After Yousef was arrested in February, he mentioned the existence of another conspirator and expressed surprise that he had not yet been arrested.

9. John Anticev to FBI plant Emad Salem. Salem taped most of his phone conversations, including those with the FBI.

10. FD-302, [Proffer Session], p.3, Mohammad Abdul Haggag.

11. New York Times, February 12,1995.

12. See Charles Wallace, Los Angeles Times, May 30, 1995; David Ottaway and Steven Croll, Washington Post, June 5, 1995; Maryanne Weaver, New Yorker, June 5, 1995.

13. Brad White to the author, September 23,1995.

14. See Laurie Mylroie and James Ring Adams. "Saddam's Germs", The American Spectator, November 1995.

15. a1-Jumhuriyah, October 4, 1994.

16. al-Jumhuriyah, October 5, 1994.

17. al-Jumhuriyah, October 8, 1994.

18, Al-Iraq, April 11, 1995.

19. Al-Quds al-Arabi, June 15,1995.

20. This was suggested by Frank Gaffney in a Center for Security Policy "Decision Brief," July 7,1995.

21 "Saddam Nears End-game," The Guardian, September 4, 1995.

22. Telephone interview with Samarrai, in Damascus, September 1995.

23. McNeil-Lehrer Newshour, August 28, 1995.

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THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMB: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why It Matters - The National Interest, Winter, 1995/96

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The National Interest, Winter, 1995/96 by Laurie Mylroie ACCORDING TO THE presiding judge in last year's trial, the bombing of New York's World Trade Center on February 26, 1993 was meant to topple the city's tallest tower onto its twin, amid a cloud of cyanide gas.

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On Monday, gunmen opened fire on Shiite Muslim worshipers kneeling in prayer at a mosque in eastern Pakistan, killing 16 and injuring at least 25 others. According to police, up to 13 of the injured were in critical condition. For the time being, no one has claimed responsibility for today's strike. Police said they feared it was related to the ongoing conflict in Pakistan between rival Shiite and Sunni Muslim sects, which has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people. The attack on Monday in the village of Quereshi More, 180 miles south of Lahore, the provincial capital of eastern Punjab, happened as 100 Shiite worshipers were finishing morning prayers, which marked the start of the regular daylong fast during Ramadan.
Witnesses said the gunmen, who were on bikes, fired bullets into the mosque as they sped by. They said there were as many as four bikes, each with two riders.

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Gunmen opened fire on Shiite Muslim worshipers kneeling in prayer at a mosque in eastern Pakistan on Monday, killing 16 people and wounding at least 25.

As many as 13 of the wounded were believed to be in critical condition, police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for today's attack. Police said they feared it was part of the relentless violence between rival Shiite and Sunni Muslim sects that has killed hundreds of people in Pakistan.

Monday's attack in the village of Quereshi More, 180 miles south of the eastern Punjab provincial capital of Lahore, occurred as 100 Shiite worshipers were finishing morning prayers that marked the beginning of the daily daylong fast during the holy month of Ramadan.

The attackers, who were riding motorcycles, sprayed the mosque with bullets as they sped past, witnesses said. There were apparently as many as four motorcycles, each with two riders, they said.

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Gunmen opened fire on Shiite Muslim worshipers kneeling in prayer at a mosque in eastern Pakistan on Monday, killing 16 people and wounding at least 25. As many as 13 of the wounded were believed to be in critical condition, police said.

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The New York Yankees rejoice after Jorge Posada and Scott Brosius scored on a Luis Sojo single in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the World Series against the New York Mets at Shea Stadium on Thursday, Oct. 26, 2000. The Yankees won the World Series 4-2 over the Mets. In the top of the ninth inning, the Series was practically over. Boss Bobby Valentine maintained that he'd live or die with Mets ace Al Leiter, despite the fact that Leiter's pitch count was nearing 140. Leiter walked Jorge Posada and gave up a single to Scott Brosius after hitting out Tino Martinez and Paul O'Neill. After that, Luis Sojo hit a two-out single off Leiter. Jay Payton's throw struck Jorge Posada as he was running into home plate and went into the Yankee dugout, allowing Scott Brosius to score and Sojo to take third base, putting the Yankees up 4-2. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Mike Piazza faced Mariano Rivera as the tying run.

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On September 11, 2001, 19 al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists hijacked four planes and carried out suicide attacks against US targets. Two aircraft entered the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City, a third plane struck the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and a fourth plane landed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which sparked massive US counter-terrorism efforts and established George W. Bush's presidency. An American Airlines Boeing 767 carrying 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 8:45 a.m. on September 11, 2001, on a calm Tuesday morning. Hundreds of people were killed immediately and hundreds more were trapped in higher floors after the impact left a gaping, flaming crater at the 80th floor of the 110-story skyscraper. When the tower and its twin were being evacuated, news cameras showed live pictures of what looked to be a freak accident. And, 18 minutes after the first plane landed, United Airlines Flight 175 came out of nowhere, heading straight for the World Trade Center. A huge explosion resulted from the impact, which sprayed flaming rubble over nearby buildings and into the streets below. It was obvious right away that America was being attacked.

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On October 7, 2001, American and British forces launch an intensive bombing campaign against Taliban-controlled Afghanistan as part of a US-led coalition. Other countries, such as France, Germany, Australia, and Canada, offered logistical assistance, and the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance rebels later provided troops. The invasion of Afghanistan was the first salvo of the United States' "war on terror," which was a response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001. The invasion of Afghanistan, dubbed "Operation Enduring Freedom" by the US military, was aimed at terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida group, which was headquartered in the region, as well as the extremist Taliban regime, which had controlled much of the country since 1996 and funded and defended al-Qaida. The Taliban, who had enforced their fundamentalist version of Islam across the region, also committed numerous human rights violations against the country's citizens, especially women, children, and ethnic Hazaras. During their reign, a vast number of Afghans lived in abject poverty, and it is estimated that up to 4 million Afghans died of starvation. Both the US and the UN Security Council had requested that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden for trial in the weeks leading up to the invasion. The invasion began with an aerial bombardment of Taliban and al-Qaida installations in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Konduz, and Mazar-e-Sharif after the Taliban's counteroffers were deemed unsatisfactory, including a promise to prosecute bin Laden in an Islamic court. Other coalition planes delivered humanitarian aid to Afghan civilians through airdrops. The Taliban referred to the acts as a "assault on Islam." Osama bin Laden called for a global war against non-Muslims in a taped speech broadcast on the Arabic al-Jazeera television network.

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World Trade Center

On September 11, 2001, at 8:45 a.m. on a clear Tuesday morning, an American Airlines Boeing 767 loaded with 20,000 gallons of jet fuel crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

The impact left a gaping, burning hole near the 80th floor of the 110-story skyscraper, instantly killing hundreds of people and trapping hundreds more in higher floors.

As the evacuation of the tower and its twin got underway, television cameras broadcasted live images of what initially appeared to be a freak accident. Then, 18 minutes after the first plane hit, a second Boeing 767-United Airlines Flight 175-appeared out of the sky, turned sharply toward the World Trade Center and sliced into the south tower near the 60th floor.

The collision caused a massive explosion that showered burning debris over surrounding buildings and onto the streets below. It immediately became clear that America was under attack.

Osama bin Laden

The hijackers were Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia and several other Arab nations. Reportedly financed by the al Qaeda terrorist organization of Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden, they were allegedly acting in retaliation for America's support of Israel, its involvement in the Persian Gulf War and its continued military presence in the Middle East.

Some of the terrorists had lived in the United States for more than a year and had taken flying lessons at American commercial flight schools. Others had slipped into the country in the months before September 11 and acted as the "muscle" in the operation.

Where Did the 9/11 Planes Take Off From?

The 19 terrorists smuggled box-cutters and knives through security at three East Coast airports-Logan International Airport in Boston, Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C. and Newark International Airport in New Jersey-and boarded four early-morning flights bound for California, chosen because the planes were loaded with fuel for the long transcontinental journey. Soon after takeoff, the terrorists commandeered the four planes and took the controls, transforming ordinary passenger jets into guided missiles.

Pentagon Attack

As millions watched the events unfolding in New York, American Airlines Flight 77 circled over downtown Washington, D.C., before crashing into the west side of the Pentagon military headquarters at 9:45 a.m.

Jet fuel from the Boeing 757 caused a devastating inferno that led to the structural collapse of a portion of the giant concrete building, which is the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense.

All told, 125 military personnel and civilians were killed in the Pentagon, along with all 64 people aboard the airliner.

Twin Towers Collapse

Less than 15 minutes after the terrorists struck the nerve center of the U.S. military, the horror in New York took a catastrophic turn when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed in a massive cloud of dust and smoke.

The structural steel of the skyscraper, built to withstand winds in excess of 200 miles per hour and a large conventional fire, could not withstand the tremendous heat generated by the burning jet fuel.

At 10:30 a.m., the north building of the twin towers collapsed. Only 18 people in the World Trade Center towers at the time of the collapse survived. Most were with a group of FDNY firefighters in the North Tower's Stairwell B, which remained intact. One woman survived after the stairs she was rushing down disintegrated around her. Almost 10,000 others were treated for injuries, many severe.

Flight 93

Meanwhile, a fourth California-bound plane- United Flight 93-was hijacked about 40 minutes after leaving Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. Because the plane had been delayed in taking off, passengers on board learned of events in New York and Washington via cell phone and Airfone calls to the ground.

Knowing that the aircraft was not returning to an airport as the hijackers claimed, a group of passengers and flight attendants planned an insurrection.

One of the passengers, Thomas Burnett, Jr., told his wife over the phone that "I know we're all going to die. There's three of us who are going to do something about it. I love you, honey." Another passenger-Todd Beamer-was heard saying "Are you guys ready? Let's roll" over an open line.

Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and explained that she had slipped into a galley and was filling pitchers with boiling water. Her last words to him were "Everyone's running to first class. I've got to go. Bye."

The passengers fought the four hijackers and are suspected to have attacked the cockpit with a fire extinguisher. The plane then flipped over and sped toward the ground at upwards of 500 miles per hour, crashing in a rural field near Shanksville in western Pennsylvania at 10:10 a.m.

All 44 people aboard were killed. Its intended target is not known, but theories include the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland or one of several nuclear power plants along the eastern seaboard.

How Many People Died in the 9/11 Attacks?

A total of 2,996 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks, including the 19 terrorist hijackers aboard the four airplanes. Citizens of 78 countries died in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

At the World Trade Center, 2,763 died after the two planes slammed into the twin towers. That figure includes 343 firefighters and paramedics, 23 New York City police officers and 37 Port Authority police officers who were struggling to complete an evacuation of the buildings and save the office workers trapped on higher floors.

At the Pentagon, 189 people were killed, including 64 on American Airlines Flight 77, the airliner that struck the building. On Flight 93, 44 people died when the plane crash-landed in Pennsylvania.

America Responds to the Attacks

At 7 p.m., President George W. Bush, who was in Florida at the time of the attacks and had spent the day being shuttled around the country because of security concerns, returned to the White House.

At 9 p.m., he delivered a televised address from the Oval Office, declaring, "Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve."

In a reference to the eventual U.S. military response he declared, "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them."

Operation Enduring Freedom, the American-led international effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network based there, began on October 7. Within two months, U.S. forces had effectively removed the Taliban from operational power, but the war continued, as U.S. and coalition forces attempted to defeat a Taliban insurgency campaign based in neighboring Pakistan.

Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11th attacks, remained at large until May 2, 2011, when he was finally tracked down and killed by U.S. forces at a hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In June 2011, then-President Barack Obama announced the beginning of large-scale troop withdrawals from Afghanistan; it took until August 2021 for all U.S. forces to withdraw.

Department of Homeland Security Is Created

In the wake of security fears raised by 9/11 and the mailing of letters containing anthrax that killed two and infected 17, The Homeland Security Act of 2002 created the Department of Homeland Security. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush on November 25, 2002. Today, the Department of Homeland Security is a cabinet responsible for preventing terror attacks, border security, immigrations and customs and disaster relief and prevention.

The act was followed two days later by the formation of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The bipartisan " 9/11 Commission," as it came to be known, was charged with investigating the events that lead up to September 11th. The 9/11 Commission Report was released on July 22, 2004. It named Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind behind 9/11, "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks."

Mohammed led propaganda operations for al Qaeda from 1999-2001. He was captured on March 1, 2003 by the Central Intelligence Agency and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and interrogated before being imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay detention camp with four other accused terrorists charged with 9/11-related war crimes. The use of torture, including waterboarding, during Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's interrogation has received international attention. In August 2019, a U.S. military court judge in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba set a trial date for Mohammed and the other four men charged with plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks to begin in 2021; it was later postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Economic Impact of 9/11

The 9/11 attacks had an immediate negative effect on the U.S. economy. Many Wall Street institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange, were evacuated during the attacks. On the first day of trading after the attacks, the market fell 7.1 percent, or 684 points. New York City's economy alone lost 143,000 jobs a month and $2.8 billion wages in the first three months. The heaviest losses were in finance and air transportation, which accounted for 60 percent of lost jobs. The estimated cost of the World Trade Center damage is $60 billion. The cost to clean the debris at Ground Zero was $750 million.

Victim Compensation Fund

Thousands of first responders and people working and living in lower Manhattan near Ground Zero were exposed to toxic fumes and particles emanating from the towers as they burned and fell. By 2018, 10,000 people were diagnosed with 9/11-related cancer.

From 2001 to 2004, over $7 billion dollars in compensation was given to families of the 9/11 victims and the 2,680 people injured in the attacks. Funding was renewed on January 2, 2011, when President Barack Obama signed The James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act into law. Named for James Zadroga, a New York City Police officer who died of respiratory disease he contracted after rescuing people from the rubble at Ground Zero, the law continued health monitoring and compensation for 9/11 first responders and survivors.

In 2015, funding for the treatment of 9/11-related illness was renewed for five more years at a total of $7.4 billion. The Victim Compensation Fund was set to stop accepting claims in December 2020.

On July 29, 2019, then-President Trump signed a law authorizing support for the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund through 2092. Previously, administrators had cut benefits by up to 70 percent as the $7.4 billion fund depleted. Vocal lobbyists for the fund included Jon Stewart, 9/11 first responder John Feal and retired New York Police Department detective and 9/11 responder Luis Alvarez, who died of cancer 18 days after testifying before Congress.

Anniversary and Memorial

On December 18, 2001, Congress approved naming September 11 "Patriot Day" to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. In 2009, Congress named September 11 a National Day of Service and Remembrance.

The first memorials to September 11 came in the immediate wake of the attacks, with candlelight vigils and flower tributes at U.S. embassies around the world. In Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth sang the American national anthem during the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Rio de Janeiro put up billboards showing the city's Christ the Redeemer statue embracing the New York City skyline.

For the first anniversary of the attacks in New York City in 2002, two bright columns of light were shot up into the sky from where the Twin Towers once stood. The "Tribute in Light" then became an annual installation run by the Municipal Art Society of New York. On clear nights, the beams are visible from over 60 miles away.

A World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition was held to select an appropriate permanent memorial to the victims of 9/11. The winning design by Michael Arad, "Reflecting Absence," now sits outside the museum in an eight-acre park. It consists of two reflecting pools with waterfalls rushing down where the Twin Towers once rose into the sky.

The names of all 2,983 victims are engraved on the 152 bronze panels surrounding the pools, arranged by where individuals were on the day of the attacks, so coworkers and people on the same flight are memorialized together. The site was opened to the public on September 11, 2011, to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum followed, opening on the original World Trade Center site in May 2014. The Freedom Tower, also on the original World Trade Center site, opened in November 2014.

Sources

"Study Confirms 9/11 Impact on New York City Economy." The New York Times
"September 11: nearly 10,000 people affected by 'cesspool of cancer.'" The Guardian.
"Congress passes 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund extension championed by Jon Stewart." CNN.com
The Encyclopedia of 9/11. New York Magazine.
FAQ About 9/11. 9/11 Memorial.
September 11th Terror Attacks Fast Facts. CNN.
9/11 Death Statistics. StatisticBrain.com.

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September 11 Attacks: Facts, Background & Impact

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On September 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

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On October 7, 2001, a U.S.-led coalition begins attacks on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan with an intense bombing campaign by American and British forces. Logistical support was provided by other nations including France, Germany, Australia and Canada and, later, troops were provided by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance rebels. The invasion of Afghanistan was the opening salvo in the United States "war on terror" and a response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. The conflict in Afghanistan would span two decades and become the longest war in U.S. history.

Dubbed "Operation Enduring Freedom" in U.S. military parlance, the invasion of Afghanistan was intended to target terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organization, which was based in the country, as well as the extreme fundamentalist Taliban government that had ruled most of the country since 1996 and supported and protected al-Qaeda.

The Taliban, which had imposed its extremist version of Islam on the entire country, also perpetrated countless human rights abuses against its people, especially women, girls and ethnic Hazaras. During their rule, large numbers of Afghans lived in utter poverty, and as many as 4 million Afghans are thought to have suffered from starvation.

In the weeks prior to the invasion, both the United States and the U.N. Security Council had demanded that the Taliban turn over Osama bin Laden for prosecution. After deeming the Taliban's counteroffers unsatisfactory-among them to try bin Laden in an Islamic court-the invasion began with an aerial bombardment of Taliban and al-Qaeda installations in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Konduz and Mazar-e-Sharif. Other coalition planes flew in airdrops of humanitarian supplies for Afghan civilians. The Taliban called the actions "an attack on Islam."

After the air campaign softened Taliban defenses, the coalition began a ground invasion, with Northern Alliance forces providing most of the troops and the United States and other nations giving air and ground support. On November 12, a little over a month after the military action began, Taliban officials and their forces retreated from the capital of Kabul. By early December, Kandahar, the last Taliban stronghold, had fallen and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar went into hiding rather than surrender.

Al-Qaeda fighters continued to hide out in Afghanistan's mountainous Tora Bora region, where they were engaged by anti-Taliban Afghan forces, backed by U.S. Special Forces troops. Al-Qaeda soon initiated a truce, which is now believed to have been a ploy to allow Osama bin Laden and other key al-Qaeda members time to escape into neighboring Pakistan. By mid-December, the bunker and cave complex used by al-Qaeda at Tora Bora had been captured, but there was no sign of bin Laden. Following a 10-year manhunt, bin Laden was finally found and killed in Pakistan by U.S. Navy SEALS on May 2, 2011.

After Tora Bora, a grand council of Afghan tribal leaders and former exiles was convened under the leadership of Hamid Karzai, who first served as interim leader before becoming the first democratically elected president of Afghanistan on December 7, 2004. Even as Afghanistan began to take the first steps toward democracy, however, with more than 10,000 U.S. troops in country, al-Qaeda and Taliban forces began to regroup in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Over the next decade-plus, they continued to engage U.S. and Afghan troops in guerilla-style warfare and were also responsible for the deaths of elected government officials and aid workers and the kidnapping of foreigners. Despite a peace agreement signed between the Taliban and U.S. forces in February of 2020, hostilities on both sides continued.

In April of 2021, President Biden -who, like his previous two predecessors, pledged to end the war in Afghanistan-set the deadline of September 11, 2021 as the date of full U.S. withdrawal, with the final drawdown effort to begin in May. By early August of that year, the Taliban began retaking the country. On August 15, 2021, the capital of Kabul fell to Taliban forces and Afghan president Ashraf Ghani fled to the UAE. Following the collapse of the Afghan government and Taliban victory, on August 31, 2021, President Biden declared the war in Afghanistan officially over.

During the 20-year conflict, more than 3,500 allied soldiers were killed, with 20,000-plus Americans injured. Approximately 69,000 Afghan security forces were killed, along with roughly 51,000 civilians and 51,000 militants. According to the United Nations, some 5 million Afghans have been displaced by the war since 2012, making Afghanistan the world's third-largest displaced population.

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On October 7, 2001, a U.S.-led coalition begins attacks on Taliban-controlled Afghanistan with an intense bombing campaign by American and British forces. Logistical support was provided by other nations including France, Germany, Australia and Canada and, later, troops were provided by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance rebels.

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Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, died on June 5, 2004, after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease. Reagan, who was also a well-known actor and governor of California, was a successful president who is credited with rebuilding American confidence after the troubles of the 1970s and assisting in the defeat of communism. Reagan, who was called Dutch as a child, was born on February 6, 1911, and grew up in a number of small towns in Illinois. Reagan was a successful and outgoing student despite a difficult upbringing—his father was an alcoholic who struggled to keep down a career. He was the student council president at his high school and excelled in football, baseball, and track, as well as participating in many plays. He served as a lifeguard during the summer and is said to have saved 77 lives over the course of six years. He spent the remainder of his life on the ranch, with his wife Nancy by his side, who remained faithful to him till the end. In Simi Valley, California, he was laid to rest at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

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On June 5, 2004, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, dies, after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Reagan, who was also a well-known actor and served as governor of California, was a popular president known for restoring American confidence after the problems of the 1970s and helping to defeat communism.

Born on February 6, 1911, Reagan, who was nicknamed Dutch as a youngster, was born and raised in several small towns in Illinois. Despite a disadvantaged upbringing-his father abused alcohol and had trouble holding jobs-Reagan was a popular and outgoing student. He served as president of his high school's student council and stood out at football, basketball, and track, as well as acting in several plays. During the summer, he worked as a lifeguard, reportedly saving 77 people over six years.

After high school, Reagan enrolled at Eureka College, a small, Christian, liberal-arts school in Eureka, Illinois, from which he received a scholarship. There, he continued to show athletic prowess, playing football and swimming, as well as honing his skills in his two future pursuits: acting and politics. Reagan-then a Democrat-served as Eureka's student-body president and acted in the college's theater productions.

In 1932, Reagan graduated from Eureka with a degree in sociology and economics and found a job as a radio sports announcer. He worked in radio for five years, before going for a screen test in Los Angeles while in California to cover the Chicago Cubs' spring-training camp. Warner Brothers offered the future president a seven-year contract, but asked him to use his given name Ronald instead of Dutch in the movies.
READ MORE: How Gorbachev and Reagan's Friendship Helped Thaw the Cold War
Although he never became an A-list star, Reagan spent 20 years in Hollywood and appeared in more than 50 films and several television programs. His oft-used nickname as president, The Gipper, came from his turn playing Notre Dame football star George The Gipper Gipp in the 1940 film Knute Rockne: All American. In 1940, Reagan married actress Jane Wyman. The couple had two children: Maureen, in 1941, and Michael, whom they adopted in 1945. Reagan and Wyman divorced in 1949.

Although Reagan did not serve combat duty in World War II because of his poor eyesight, he began active duty in 1942 and made training films for the military until his discharge in 1945. Politically, it was during the 1940s that Reagan gradually became more conservative and also became involved in the country's burgeoning anti-communist movement. In 1947, he testified to the controversial House Un-American Activities Committee ( HUAC), naming elements in Hollywood that he felt were allied with communist causes. Later that year, he was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), a position he held from 1947 to 1952 and again from 1959 to 1960.

Through the course of his work with SAG, Reagan met Nancy Davis, an actress who looked to Reagan for help when she was incorrectly labeled a communist sympathizer. As he had done for others, Reagan assisted her in clearing her name. The couple also began a lifelong romance and was married in 1952. Their two children, Patricia and Ronald, were born in 1953 and 1959, respectively.

After registering as a Republican in 1962 and campaigning for Barry Goldwater in his failed 1964 presidential campaign, Reagan decided to run for governor of California in 1966. He won handily, despite his lack of experience. His plan for California foreshadowed the one he ultimately brought with him to the national stage: lower taxes, cuts in spending, and an end to big government. Despite the student protests and forced tax hikes that occurred during his first term, he ran again and was easily re-elected in 1970. Just 18 months later, he announced his unsuccessful candidacy for president at the Republican National Convention. In 1975, he left office in California and ran again for the Republican presidential nomination, losing in a close race to Gerald Ford.

In 1980, Reagan ran yet again and won the nomination easily, choosing George H.W. Bush as his running mate. Running on a platform of a return to American values, smaller government, a stronger military, and tax cuts, Reagan appealed to an American public frustrated with inflation and foreign policy problems, like the Iranian hostage crisis. He won, and at age 69, became the oldest man to be elected to the office. A talented and practiced public speaker, Reagan's personal charm, warm manner, and optimistic message endeared him to many Americans. He was re-elected by a landslide in 1984.

Just 69 days after taking office, Ronald Reagan was shot by John Hinckley after giving a speech at a hotel about one mile from the White House. After surgery to remove the bullet, which had lodged near his heart, he recovered quickly, which added to his image as a strong leader. Throughout his two terms in office, Reagan pursued his trademark economic program, Reaganomics-a supply-side economics theory that involved drastic cuts to both taxes and spending. At the time, and increasingly in the intervening years since his presidency, Reagan drew criticism for ruthlessly slashing social programs while building up a huge deficit with massive military expenditures. He is also criticized for his partiality to business interests, removing many regulations on big business that he felt were impeding growth, as well as authorizing the firing of striking air-traffic controllers in 1981.

It was his campaign to end the Cold War, though, that defined the Reagan presidency for many Americans. His plan was to use an unprecedented military buildup to negotiate arms-reduction treaties from a position of strength. During a visit to Germany, he famously urged then-Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down that wall. By 1991, the Berlin Wall was torn down and the Soviet Union Reagan had once referred to as an evil empire was no more. While many credit Reagan for this historic turn of events, and it is certain he played a significant role, others point to internal problems in the Soviet Union for its ultimate demise.
READ MORE: President Reagan challenges Gorbachev to "Tear down this wall"
Reagan's foreign policy included military interventions in Lebanon, Grenada and Libya, which had mixed results. He is also known for backing anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua and authorizing a secret CIA military operation there in the early 1980s. This led to the Iran-Contra scandal, in which it was found that illegal arms sales to Iran were used to fund the administration's support of Nicaragua's Contra rebels. No evidence was ever found to suggest that Reagan himself or Vice President Bush broke the law. Despite the scandal, George H.W. Bush succeeded Reagan to the presidency in 1988.

Known as the Great Communicator, Reagan left the Oval Office as one of the most popular presidents in history, retiring to his much-loved California ranch, Rancho del Cielo. His announcement in 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease was greeted with great sadness by many across the country. He wrote, in an open letter to the American people, I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead.

He lived out the rest of his days on the ranch, with his wife Nancy, who remained devoted to him to the end, by his side. He was buried at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
READ MORE: Ronald Reagan: His Life and Legacy

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Former U.S. president Ronald Reagan dies

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On June 5, 2004, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, dies, after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Reagan, who was also a well-known actor and served as governor of California, was a popular president known for restoring American confidence after the problems of the 1970s and helping to defeat communism.

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When Aiken County Sheriff Michael Hunt recalls the fatal train derailment in Graniteville 16 years ago today, the first thing that comes to mind is the nine lives lost. In the heart of Graniteville, just outside one of the Avondale Mills textile factories, a Norfolk Southern two-engine, 42-car train veered into a spur line and collided into a locomotive tied down on a side track, derailing 14 cars at 2:39 a.m. on Jan. 6, 2005. Chief Charles Barranco of the Aiken Department of Public Safety, who was a director of the department's special assistance division 16 years earlier, still recalled the nine victims and how the derailment impacted small economies and people's lives. The crash caused corrosive damage to industrial equipment, resulting in the closure of the Avondale Mills, the former Graniteville Company, and the loss of jobs. In addition to the nine people who died, Vena said 15 people spent more than two days in ICUs at local hospitals; 72 people were hospitalized; 851 people were treated; and more than 7,000 people were ordered to shelter in place.

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Between 1992 and 1996, the USS Constitution underwent a significant renovation that restored her to the most historically correct condition of the twentieth century. Commander Michael C. Beck's idea of sailing "Old Ironsides" became a reality after the keel was straightened and the hull was greatly reinforced. The Constitution could set up to 48 sails, but for this historic voyage, the ship was only fitted with her "Fighting Sail"—the six sails that were used to lead the ship into war. The “Old Ironsides” Pennies Campaign, modeled after the initial Penny Campaign of the 1920s, where schoolchildren across America contributed pennies to the restoration of the USS Constitution, provided funding for these sails.

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What happened on September 11, 2001? | 9/11 attacks

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OJ Simpson   What Happened  |    Documentary 2017