The 1993 World Trade Center Tragedy: the FBI’s Triumph from 17 Characters

Sobheet Rath

Junior Division

Individual Exhibit

Process Paper Word Count: 495

Website Word Count: 968

Media Time: 3 minutes, 19 seconds

 In the summer of 2018, I visited New York City with my family. Visiting the 9/11

memorial and spending a day there was such an emotional experience. I realized that the 1993

World Trade Center bombing was a prelude to the 9/11 event. I chose my topic, the 1993

bombing of the World Trade Center (WTC), because I wanted to learn the causes of this event

and how it changed America’s perspectives on terrorism.

I began my research by watching several documentaries on the 1993 WTC bombing. To

get a deeper understanding, I went to the Alvin Sherman Library at Nova Southeastern

University. There, I found several relevant books including ​The Terrorist’s Son​ by Zak Ebrahim​,

and Vigilance: My Life Serving America and Protecting Its Empire City b​ y​ R
​ ay Kelly. Later, I

conducted an interview with Dr. Francisco Mora. Who prior to joining FIU, had served as

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Western Hemisphere from 2009-2013. He

explained the history of Islamic Jihad and its conflicts, including the Taliban War with the Soviet

Union and the U.S. involvement in various Middle Eastern conflicts. I watched an interview of

Mary Jo White, who served as ​U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1993.

White explained how the Manila Air Bombing not only found Ramzi Yousef, but led the FBI to

find out about Osama bin Laden, who had transferred money to plan the Manila Air attack. In

addition, I also read numerous newspaper articles and other publications to collect more

information.

I decided to create a website because I wanted to describe the story, not only with words

and images, but with various multimedia content to make it engaging and interesting. I wanted to

keep the website navigation simpler by creating tabs at the top and still allowing the reader to

move from page to page. As I learned Weebly and continued to build the website, I decided to
give the reader a feel of the tragic day by including a video excerpt of NBC’s live coverage.

Since I also wanted the reader to hear the context of terrorism, I included an audio clip from my

interview with Dr. Frank Mora.

Prior to 1993, America assumed it was safe from terrorist attacks, protected by two

oceans and friendly neighbors. When islamist terrorist attacks occurred in Europe and the Middle

East, America never thought that the attacks would come to its shores. On February 26th, 1993,

everything changed, the same islamist terrorist groups tried to take down the World Trade

Center. Although they didn’t succeed in their original intention, they did tragically kill six

citizens and wound over one-thousand. The real tragedy from this event is that America didn’t

learn enough to stop the 9/11 attack, which killed approximately 3000​. The triumph from this

tragic event was how a seventeen character Vehicle Identification Number led the FBI to catch

the terrorists, and eventually discovered Osama bin Laden.