Often lost in discussion of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center (WTC) is the fact that a very similar attack, with similar motivation and related perpetrators, occurred eight years earlier. On February 16, 1993, a truck bomb in the basement parking garage of the WTC killed six, injured hundreds, and damaged property to the extent of half a billion dollars. The bomb was designed to topple one of the towers into the other and to bring both towers down. The man behind this plan, Ramza Yousef, noted regretfully that if he had had a little more funding his design would have succeeded and killed tens of thousands (Kirk, 2002). The U.S. response to this attack was police work and prosecution. After trials and convictions, six Arab men are in U.S. prisons, and a seventh person is still being sought.
Publication Information
McCauley, Clark. 2006. "War Versus Justice in Response to Terrorist Attacks." In Psychology of Terrorism, eds. Bruce Bongar, Lisa M. Brown, Larry E. Beutler, James E. Breckenridge, and Philip G. Zambardo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 56-65. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/psychology-of-terrorism-9780195…;