This guy...was crazy.
He is crazy
- He had come into
the country to attack
the United States
on our own ground.
There's been an
expl*si*n
at the World Trade
Center parking lot.
- It left a huge 200 foot wide
crater...
It's been obliterated.
- This is the mastermind.
Mr. Nobody.
Somebody was living in
that apartment.
- This is basically
a b*mb factory.
He had created a micro-b*mb.
- Every effort has to be made
right now
to figure out this plot.
He left New York
the night of the b*mb.
- He wants to assassinate
the Pope and he wants to k*ll
a quarter of a million people.
He's going to come back and
he's going to keep coming back
- They told me to grab my
team. We're going to get him.
In the FBI,
we make a lot of headlines.
Drug busts, mob stings.
t*rror1st takedowns.
We understand why people want
to tell stories about us.
- Mark it.
- Freeze!
- FBI.
- FBI!
- Action!
But they don't
know the half of it.
What really goes down?
We save that for each other,
when we're talking
agent to agent.
This is FBI. True.
- February 26, 1993.
Where were you when you heard
there was an expl*si*n
at the World Trade Center?
Kristy Kottis
is a 24-year veteran of the FB.
Kottis was the supervisor
of the FBI's threat response
squad, overseeing the bureau's
response to terrorism threats
in New York City.
- I was down at 26 Federal
Plaza, in New York.
Frank Pellegrino
has used his expertise
in accounting and law to handle
counter-espionage
and terrorism cases at home
and abroad.
- So and the FBI office
at 26 Federal Plaza
is only about four blocks from
the World Trade Center.
It's very close.
- Very close.
People actually heard a rumble.
and then it came on the news
pretty quick
that something happened down
at the Trade Center.
It was chaos down there.
Watch out, watch out!
There's been an
expl*si*n at the exit ramp
to the World Trade Center
parking lot.
There was a tremendous
expl*si*n.
I actually
saw the walls shaking.
It sounded like a b*mb,
or a bang, or something, like...
or a pop, I can't really
explain it.
- It was chaos, because you
didn't know whether the fire
was below you, or above you.
Where is the smoke?
It got thicker as you
went down.
Makes it appear
that something in the basement
happened because the people
that seem to be harmed
were on the lower levels.
- It's a lot of smoke, you can't
breathe, you can't breathe!
- You can't breathe?
- No!
- The reports initially
were that it was a transformer
that had blown up,
and that sounded reasonable.
- This expl*si*n
in a sub-basement, B-2,
in the middle of the building,
and destroyed multiple floors
Charlie Rasner is n
expert in expl*sives
and hostage rescue and
a recipient
of the FBI's shield
of bravery.
- That left a huge
- Wow.
- And it's been obliterated.
Something blew.
Something big blew.
I've never seen anything
like it in my life.
You know, there was thousands
of injuries,
and there was also
seven deaths.
David Kelley has
prosecuted organized crime
and terrorism cases and served
as U.S. attorney
for the Southern District
of New York.
- The victims were essentially
maintenance and service
providers in the building who
were, you know,
having their lunch break, and
they were all k*lled
by the expl*si*n.
These were six employees,
one of whom was pregnant
with the seventh victim.
John di Giovanni, Robert
Kirkpatrick, Steve Napp,
William Macko, Wilfredo
Marcato, and Monica Smith,
who was seven months pregnant
at the time.
We're
working with a massive expl*si*n
that the police department
and federal authorities
are investigating what they
think it might be.
- This was 1993.
I mean, you wouldn't think
that it was anything other than
a bad accident that happened.
- But, you look at the cars,
the vehicles in the garage,
you know, are they mangled?
Are they flipped? Are
they pushed?
It's obvious, you know,
that...it's a b*mb.
- There's a bit of a pit in your
stomach.
- Now that we know it's
a b*mb, our number one goal
is to find the mastermind
who built it.
When you have a b*mb,
you have to have a container.
In this case, because of
the size of the b*mb,
the size of the crater, you had
to have a big one.
So, a truck.
So you look for the most mangled
piece of a truck in
the vicinity.
- And one of the items that was
found still had the VIN number
on it.
We ran the VIN number.
It was a Ryder van
rented out of Jersey City.
When agents went out to speak
to Ryder about it,
they found out a person named
Mohammed Salameh rented the van.
And they found out that Salameh
had called in to
the Ryder office saying
that the van was stolen
and that he wanted a refund
of his deposit.
- What?
Were you like: "Oh, my God"?
- Well, we had Ryder call him
back, making a point for him
to come down and get his money.
- I remember thinking:
"there's no f'ing way this guy's
coming back."
We had the place surrounded
with agents and detectives
and task force members.
- Basically an arrest team,
a surveillance team and sounds
like an undercover team?
- Yes.
We actually had agents and
detectives inside Ryder,
behind the desk.
So, down the road,
they see someone approaching.
And it's Salameh.
- The guy's coming back
to get his $400 deposit.
- This guy's nuts.
Why would you rent the van
in your real name
and then go back for the deposit
after you blew the van up?
- But he went anyway.
- He went anyway.
A bunch of agents grabbed
him, threw him in a van.
- What was his face?
Was he shocked?
- I don't think we got a good
look at his face
because they got him in that van
pretty quickly.
He was back in Manhattan within
minutes.
They took him to 26
Fed for processing.
He gets fingerprinted.
- Is he cooperating
at this point?
- Cooperating no. But we try to
find out who else
he is connected to
or what calls he makes.
Does he make calls overseas?
Uh, is there anybody else
in the States
we should be looking at?
- And then we get the call from
the storage facility.
- Right.
- The storage facility
was interesting because
it was a big piece.
See, weeks before
the expl*si*n
at the World Trade Center,
staff at a storage facility
in Jersey City noticed
that there were a lot
of suspicious-looking guys
coming and going
at one of their lockers.
A lot of guys, bringing
all kinds of stuff in.
Staff thought it was weird,
but you know, it's 1993,
nobody's thinking about
terrorism, so they weren't
alarmed or anything.
- When Salameh's picture gets
put all over the news...
- The guy who ran the storage
facility said:
"Oh, I recognize that guy",
and you know: "let me
make a phone call."
The storage facility call came
in, and obviously we go there
- We send out b*mb
techs, ERT. They open it up.
They see...
- Chemicals and other stuff
that was being stored
there.
- The storage facility employees
tell us the fact that people
came in with a van, the fact
that they loaded,
the fact that they had hydrogen
tanks delivered.
And in fact, the storage
facility employee comes out
and says: "hey, wait a second,
you can't put those hydrogen
tanks in the storage facility,
they'll blow up!"
- Charlie, when you hear about
the ingredients,
what does that conjure in your
mind as a b*mb tech?
- This is basically
a b*mb factory.
And it sounds like they were
trying to make an ANFO b*mb,
initially, ammonium nitrate fuel
oil, but it didn't pan out
so they went with
this urea nitrate.
- And that was
boosted by hydrogen.
- Yeah. Boosters really make
a big difference
in the, uh, expl*sive train.
The better the boosters,
the larger the expl*si*n,
more devastation.
It was the biggest b*mb that
we had had to date
since we started keeping records
back in the 1920s.
- Wow.
At the storage
facility, everything is checked
for fingerprints, and there
were hits coming up.
Salameh's fingerprint
was found on a yellow-page book,
and the page in the Yellow Pages
was for rental vans.
- So, Salameh rented
the truck?
- We certainly knew he was one
of the people involved.
But we just didn't think
that he would be the one to be
directing everybody on how
to do such a thing.
- You know, you look at him and
like: "I'm not sure he's
the mastermind," but who was?
- He's still in the wind.
- Still in the wind.
We did find other latent prints
that were unidentified,
that we weren't able to match.
- So that's a lead.
- Yeah.
I mean, you're running
the prints now against
everything.
We searched every database,
but we came up with nothing.
- So we've got fingerprints
that belong to Mr. Nobody.
Unidentified.
Agents working on Salameh's
apartment did find
a letter in the apartment
addressed to someone
about an asylum claim
that he made when he entered
the country. Ramzi Yousef.
So we went to the, uh, lawyer
who was working the asylum
claim.
Fortunately, when Ramzi came in,
because he was filing
an asylum claim,
he was photographed,
and his fingerprints were taken
for immigration purposes.
So we ran the prints against
those latent prints
that were unidentified from all
the b*mb-making material
that was in the storage place.
At this point we were able to
confirm that they were the same
fingerprints.
But when agents
question Mohammed Salameh's
associates about Yousef,
they hear yet another
unfamiliar name.
- This other person had come
into the country recently.
And everybody was referring
to him as "Rashid."
I don't think they really knew
who he was.
They have nicknames that they
give each other, and he was
"Rashid."
- What are they saying
that this guy is doing?
Like, why is he important?
- Rashid was the one who was
leading the charge.
That knew how to mix
the chemicals and knew how
to create the b*mb.
But they had told
the interviewers that Rashid
had gone to the Pakistani
consulate to get
a new passport
before the bombing.
So we went to the consulate,
spoke to the consul general.
We asked if he could see who
came into the embassy
for maybe a two-week period
before the bombing
and applied for a new
Pakistani passport.
So he actually left
for a little while,
he came back with a document,
but not Ramzi Yousef.
Not that name.
- What was the name?
- Abdel Basset Mahmoud
Abdul Karim.
And he actually had
a picture.
A different picture,
much younger picture,
clean shaven of the person
we knew as Ramzi Yosef
from the immigration record.
So now we know,
Ramzi Yousef is Rashid.
- Bingo.
- This is the mastermind.
This is our guy.
- Right.
So then we were able to take
his real name,
and we ran that through
departure records and
the airlines.
- Yeah.
And we actually found out
that Ramzi Yousef left New York
the night of the bombing.
- Yousef had come into
the country to, attack
the interests of the United
States on our own ground.
How can we make sure he's not
going to go do something else
equally as bad or worse?
He was put on the ten most
wanted list.
The motors are running and we've
got to go find this guy.
So, there was a sense
of urgency there.
How can we get our hands
on him, and quick?
- Where do we think Yousef
is now?
- Yousef's plane ticket
was to Quetta.
Which is right near
the border with Afghanistan.
So we still weren't, you know,
sure, was he still in Pakistan?
And then, I came into the office
on a Monday
and there was a teletype
that came from the Philippines.
The pope's visit
to the Philippines
draws millions to the streets
of the capital.
As police prepare for the even,
an emergency call
puts them on high alert.
There is a fire or smoke
condition that draws
the authorities to this
apartment that's right
on the Pope's route.
- The fire department came,
and they found some chemicals
and a lot of b*mb-making
materials in this apartment.
Somebody had left all
kinds of stuff.
- And ultimately, there are
things connecting Ramzi Yousef
to that apartment.
You know, there's some
identification material
and so forth. The thing was
to get boots on the ground
and sort through this thing.
- Ramzi might still
be in the area.
- Right.
We met with the Philippine
National Police.
They allow us to view
the information that they took.
There was a computer, other
documents, two fake ID cards
that actually had photographs
of Ramzi Yousef.
And a chemical dictionary.
Somebody had fingered through
that quite a bit.
And we got Yousef's prints
off a lot of the stuff.
So now, now we know Yousef
is fully engaged in this.
I mean, there's all kinds of
b*mb-making material.
Including Casio watches that
they were going to change up
a little bit and use as timers
for bombs.
It's scary because it just made
you realize that Yousef
is going to come back and
he's going to keep coming back.
In fact, Ramzi
Yousef is already back
in action.
- The Japanese police got in
touch with the Philippines
and us, about the PAL 434 b*mb.
The Philippine
authorities tell the FBI
that four weeks prior
to the Manila apartment fire,
Philippine Airlines flight 434,
en route from Cebu to Tokyo,
suffered a powerful and fatal
expl*si*n, in the middle
of its passenger cabin.
- The plane made an
emergency landing.
One...Mr. Ikegami was k*lled
in that event,
and 10 people were injured.
The Japanese police were able
to determine that the item
used for that b*mb to ignite
was a Casio watch.
- So then, the Japanese police
said: "well, wait a second,
in the Manila apartment,
they had Casio watches.
We had a Casio watch here.
- Ramzi had created
a micro-b*mb.
The way that he used the Casio
watch was to attach
microfilament wires, to a bottle
full of nitroglycerin,
which he had stabilized using
wool and cotton.
He had as a power source,
two nine-volt batteries.
The plan was when they took it
onto the plane, it was not
a b*mb.
It was parts of a b*mb.
But he had them secreted
in various areas, even,
of his body.
He did, in fact, smuggle
nine-volt batteries
in the heels of his shoes.
- Yeah.
The g*n cotton was, you know,
in the dress of a doll.
And he wore the watch
on his wrist.
- He could assemble it in
the aircraft, probably
a lavatory.
And it was tiny, and he could
plant it anywhere on a plane.
He got on in Manila.
He got off in Cebu, and
then it blew up in the air.
Because his plan wasn't just
to k*ll one passenger,
it was to disrupt the jet fuel
tank below it,
where the seat was, because it
did blow a hole,
a gaping hole, underneath
Mr. Ikegami's seat.
He had plans that showed where
the fuel tanks were located,
and what seats were over those.
Thankfully, that plane,
the seats had been reconfigured
and the jet fuel tank was not
underneath that seat on
that particular flight.
Because if it had ruptured
the fuel tanks underneath,
they would have no doubt blown
that plane up.
- Wow.
- What's even more chilling
is the information
about all the flights.
- All the diagrams and
the information,
to my understanding,
is in the laptop.
They want to b*mb 11 more
planes.
- They were targeting airliners
going to the United States
from Southeast Asia.
Now you're really worried.
- A plot to set off bombs on all
these airliners,
k*lling thousands of people,
to say it was chilling
is an understatement.
- Every effort has to be made
right now to find Yousef.
We got a call from Pakistan.
A source said that Ramzi
was in Islamabad.
The source
is a University of Islamabad
student named Ishtiaque Parker.
Ramzi Yousef has been trying
to enlist Parker as a b*mber.
- He kind of went along with it,
I think, out of fear at first,
but Yosef was asking him to do
things that he did not want
to do, including, you know,
travel to Bangkok
and put some
bombs on cargo planes.
And it wasn't something
that I think ideologically
he had any thought ever of being
involved in anything like that.
The source said:
"I've had enough of this."
And he told the authorities
in Pakistan.
We also in this apartment
at this location.
I was a team leader.
They told me to grab my team.
Report to Dulles, there'll be
a private plane...
We're going to get him.
This was dark, when we landed.
- So we have an individual.
- He's in the apartment.
- The Pakistani authorities
spoke to the source and said,
you know, we want you
to go in and if he's
in the apartment, come out of
the apartment, run your hand
through your hair,
and then we'll know that,
that he's in there.
as*ault teams watch
as parker exits the building,
and raises an arm, to run his
hand through his hair.
- At that point, the Pakistani
authorities went in and cleared
the apartment and grabbed
Yousef.
- Pakistani intelligence
had him.
And they said, as soon as it's
daybreak,
they're going to give
him to you.
There's one guy standing there,
a Pakistani ISI official.
He's all happy.
- Yeah.
And there's this bag of bones
in terrible-looking clothing,
filthy, with a bag over
his head, a burlap bag-potato
sack or whatever and
some shackles from, like,
the 1850s.
- Oh wow!
- He had leg irons the whole
deal.
And, uh, he says: "here's
your package, sir.
Thank you very much."
When we took him on the plane,
We had a medic, we had the medic
to inspect, make sure it was
no broken bones or damage.
We got the bag off his head,
took the shackles off.
I took a brand new orange
jumpsuit out of a bag.
Gave it to him to,
you know, put on.
I ask you if you need
anything, he said:
"I want to be able to, when
we land, get cleaned up,
shape around a suit so I can
meet the media
and give them my story.
I want to tell them why we are
doing what we're doing.
I said: "what are you doing?
Why did you do this?
- Yeah.
- And he looked at me
and he said: "Because you help
the Jews and we hate the Jews,
and so we hate you"
That was his whole key, his
whole beef with
the United States and why
he wanted to k*ll a quarter
of a million people.
That was his reasoning.
This guy was crazy.
He is crazy.
We landed in New York.
We turn him over
to the New York SWAT guys
who are waiting.
They grab him, put him
on a helicopter.
He has a bag on his head.
They did a flyover of the city
of New York,
pulled the mask off,
just to show him
that he had failed.
The towers were
still standing.
He had no regard for human life.
And he believed in this
crazy cause of his.
So thank God that the FBI did
such tremendous work and all
the other agencies that worked
together on the task force.
A life of hell in a little hole
is what he ended up with.
He got his punishment.
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