NYC honors victims of 1993 bombing

NEW YORK — New York City has marked the anniversary of the 1993 bombing at the old World Trade Center that blew open a crater under one of the 110-story twin towers, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others years before the deadly attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey held a memorial Mass at St. Peter’s Church in Manhattan on Monday, followed by a solemn ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum near the soaring, 104-story skyscraper that rose in place of the twin towers.

A bell tolled at precisely 12:18 p.m. to mark the time of the Feb. 26 attack, and a moment of silence honored the victims. Attendees then laid roses where their names are inscribed at a reflecting pool representing the footprint of the North Tower, where the underground parking garage bombing happened.

Charles Maikish, who was director of the World Trade Center Department at the Port Authority at the time of the bombing, said at the ceremony that the 1993 attack was “targeted at the heart of our free economic and Democratic system.”

“The intent was to inflict massive loss of human life and a lasting and permanent disruption of our economic system and way of life,” he said. “Well, they failed.”

The 1993 attack was carried out by Islamic extremists who sought to punish the United States for its Middle East policies, particularly its support for Israel.

The terror cell detonated approximately 1,200 pounds of explosives in a parked rental van, leaving a five-story, 150-feetwide crater filled with 4,000 tons of rubble, according to the museum.