Ramzi Yousef

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef or Ramzi Mohammed Yousef (also transliterated as Ramzi Yusuf, Ramzi Youssef) (Arabic: ???? ???? ), birth name possibly Abdul Basit Karim,(Arabic: ??? ?????? ???? ). He is believed to have been one of the masterminds behind the first World Trade Center attack and a number of other terrorist attacks.

Terrorist Attack

In 1992, Yousef allegedly entered the United States with a false Iraqi passport. His partner, Ahmed Ajaj, who also had a false passport, was arrested on the spot after his passport was proven false and instructions for making bombs was found in his luggage. INS holding cells were overcrowded, so Yousef was told to come back in one month. He travelled around New York and New Jersey and called Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a controversial Muslim preacher, via cell phone. Yousef got the manuals back from his partner.

Related Topics:
1992 - United States - Iraq - Ahmed Ajaj - INS - New York - New Jersey - Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman - Muslim

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He got conspirators and tried obtaining mixing chemicals to make a bomb. After a hospital stay from a car accident, Yousef got back the manuals from his car, which was in a police impound.

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During an interview of Abdul Rahman Yasin that was held by CBS, Yasin says that Yousef originally wanted to bomb Jewish neighborhoods in New York City, New York. Yasin says that after he toured Crown Heights and Williamsburg, that Yousef changed his mind. Yasin alleges that Yousef was educated in bomb-making at a training camp in Peshawar.

Related Topics:
Abdul Rahman Yasin - CBS - Jew - New York City - New York - Crown Heights - Williamsburg - Peshawar

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Yousef then rented a Ryder van. On February 26, 1993, the van was loaded with explosives. Four cardboard boxes were packed into the back of the van, each containing a mixture of paper bags, newspapers, urea and nitric acid. Next to them were placed three red metal cylinders of compressed hydrogen, and four large containers of nitro-glycerine were loaded into the centre of the van, with Atlas Rockmaster blasting caps connected to each (Reeve 1999 pp 154).

Related Topics:
Ryder - February 26 - 1993

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The van was driven into the garage of the World Trade Center, where it exploded (in a later interrogation Yousef told investigators that the plan had been to take out structural parts of the foundation and make one tower collapse into the other). He fled to Pakistan hours later.

Related Topics:
World Trade Center - Pakistan

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