Before 9/11: A Biography of World Trade Center Mastermind Ramzi Yousef

By Fergus Mason

He plotted to kill Pope John Paul...to crash a plane into CIA headquarters...to blow 11 airliners flying from Asia to the United States.

But it isn't the things that he plotted that he is known for--it's the one that was carried out: the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Today the attack is largely overshadowed by 9/11, but at the time it was one of the most memorable attacks on American soil.

This book provides insight into Yousef life, his planning of the attacks, and, perhaps, one of the most bizarre twists of fates of any Islamic extremist: how he allegedly became a born again Christian while in prison.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Absolute Crime
• Release date: Mar 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393929383

Book preview

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Introduction: Target...Manhattan

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The two towers loomed over Manhattan, dominating the city. Within them tens of thousands of people bustled through their working day. Tourists - nearly ten thousand every hour - swarmed out of the elevators onto the viewing platform to gaze in awe at the Big Apple spread out nearly a quarter of a mile below them. TV and radio antennas mounted high on the great structures fed news and entertainment to millions of New Yorkers. It was just a normal day at the World Trade Center.

It wasn't going to stay normal for long, though. The towers, an awe-inspiring monument to the wealth and power of the free world, had long attracted the hatred of America's enemies. Now a Saudi Arabian millionaire who'd chosen to become a terrorist planned to reach out half way around the world and strike at this symbol of all he hated. From the war-ravaged region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, where unbending religious conservatism and pre-medieval tribal law maintain an iron grip on men's minds, a small group of terrorists had travelled to the USA to put a diabolical plan into effect. If all went the way they intended then by the end of the day the towers would be reduced to a mountain of smoldering rubble, the New York skyline would be changed forever and thousands of innocent people would be dead. But this wasn't September 11, 2001. This was February 26, 1993.

The Twin Towers will now always be linked with the image of a Boeing 767, loaded with doomed passengers, being swallowed by the face of the South Tower. Eight years before that, however, al-Qaida had already tried to bring the towers down. They failed, but the violence of the attack was still a shocking blow to the USA. Six people died and more than a thousand were injured; terrorists showed that they could strike at the very heart of a major western city, with weapons potentially capable of causing huge loss of life. After the shock came outrage and a global manhunt for the perpetrators. Most were quickly captured, but the ringleader escaped justice for another two years. In that time he spread a trail of terror around the world, and almost succeeded in causing carnage on a massive scale. His name was Ramzi Yousef and he had links to the highest levels of international jihad. There are many monsters like Ramzi Yousef in the world, and it can be hard to understand where they come from and why they do what they do. Does the life of the WTC bomber provide any answers?

Chapter 1: Early Life

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Baluchistan is not a place you'd choose for a vacation. It's the largest of Pakistan's four provinces but the most sparsely populated - it makes up 44% of the country's land area, and only 5% of the population lives there. The climate is harsh and the people are fiercely independent. Nearly 70 years after Pakistan became a nation Baluchistan still isn't fully integrated. Most people survive by subsistence farming and tribal law reigns supreme. The people are a mix of Baluchis, Pashtuns and others, and they have strong links with their fellows across the border in Afghanistan. Many of these links are family ones. Others are not.

Quetta is the largest city in Baluchistan and it's notorious as a center of extremist activity. The ruling body of the Taliban is the Quetta Shura, and it's based in the city. The Haqqani Network, run by former anti-Soviet Mujahid Jalaluddin Haqqani, also has a strong presence there; Quetta and the Waziristan city of Miranshah are both centers of Haqqani's network of religious schools, which churn out a constant stream of brainwashed young insurgents. Pakistani law officially applies in Baluchistan, but what really counts are the strict codes of Sunni Islam and tribal tradition. This is a society where a mullah's word is law, where village courts punish a man by sentencing his daughter to be raped, where human rights take a distant second place to twisted concepts of respect and honor. This is the society Ramzi Yousef's parents came from.

Like many other Baluchis Mohammed Abdul Karim followed the money to the Persian Gulf. Baluchistan lies near the old Silk Road and the people have traded with the Middle East and Far East for millennia. Once they bartered for silk, spices and precious stones. Today tens of thousands work in the oil-rich nations of the Gulf. In Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates the menial jobs are done by Palestinians, Pakistanis and Filipinos, while the locals work for the government or enjoy a playboy lifestyle.

Karim was accompanied to Kuwait by his wife, another Baluchi[1] and the sister of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Mohammed, often called KSM by intelligence operators, had become involved in Islamist terrorism by the