NEW YORK (AP) – Survivors and others are set to gather at ground zero for a solemn tribute to victims of the first terror attack on the World Trade Center, the deadly bombing 25 years ago.
Monday is the anniversary of the blast, which killed six people, one of them pregnant. The planned commemoration includes a Mass at a church near the trade center and a ceremony on the 9/11 memorial plaza, with the reading of victims’ names and a moment of silence at 12:18 p.m., when the bomb exploded and became a harbinger of terror at the twin towers.
“While overshadowed by 9/11, the 1993 bombing represented a pivotal moment in the history of the World Trade Center, in the history of New York City, and, frankly, our own national reckoning with terrorism in a global age,” said Sept. 11 museum president Alice Greenwald, whose institution has a permanent exhibition on the bombing and a special installation to commemorate the anniversary. “It had so many of the elements that we would later come to associate with 9/11.”
The names of the six people who died in the Feb. 26, 1993 truck bomb attack at the World Trade Center are inscribed in the bronze border of the north reflecting pool of the National September 11 Memorial, in New York, Friday, Feb. 23, 2018. It was a terror attack that foreshadowed Sept. 11: the deadly World Trade Center bombing that happened 25 years ago Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
The bomb, in an underground parking garage, was set by Muslim extremists who sought to punish the U.S. for its Middle East policies, according to federal prosecutors. Six bombing suspects were convicted and are in prison, including accused ringleader Ramzi Yousef – a nephew of self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. A seventh suspect in the bombing remains at large.
An estimated 50,000 people fled the blacked-out twin towers, some groping their way down smoky stairs, others rescued from stalled elevators or plucked from rooftops by police helicopters. More than 1,000 were injured.
A memorial fountain dedicated to the 1993 bombing was crushed in the attacks that destroyed the towers on Sept. 11, 2001. But bombing victims’ names are now inscribed on one of the memorial pools that bear the names of the nearly 3,000 people killed on 9/11.
A visitor to the National September 11 Museum, in New York, Friday, Feb. 23, 2018, reads a letter by Carl Selinger to his wife and children as he waited 5-1/2 hours to be rescued in a stuck elevator during the Feb. 26, 1993 truck bomb attack at the World Trade Center. It was a terror attack that foreshadowed Sept. 11: the deadly World Trade Center bombing that happened 25 years ago Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A visitor to the National September 11 Museum, in New York, Friday, Feb. 23, 2018, looks at a timeline of events of the Feb. 26, 1993 truck bomb attack at the World Trade Center. It was a terror attack that foreshadowed Sept. 11: the deadly World Trade Center bombing that happened 25 years ago Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A visitor to the National September 11 Museum, in New York, Friday, Feb. 23, 2018, looks at a model of the World Trade Center parking garage created by the FBI to demonstrate the scale of the bomb crater of the Feb. 26, 1993 attack. It was a terror attack that foreshadowed Sept. 11: the deadly World Trade Center bombing that happened 25 years ago Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A fragment of a memorial fountain, that was constructed after Feb. 26, 1993 truck bomb attack at the World Trade Center and was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, is displayed at the National September 11 Museum, in New York, Friday, Feb. 23, 2018. It was a terror attack that foreshadowed Sept. 11: the deadly World Trade Center bombing that happened 25 years ago Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A piece of the rented van, and rental agreement, that began leading investigators to Muslim extremists who sought to punish the United States for its Middle East policies, according to prosecutors, in the Feb. 26, 1993 attack at the World Trade Center, are displayed at the National September 11 Museum, in New York, Friday, Feb. 23, 2018. It was a terror attack that foreshadowed Sept. 11: the deadly World Trade Center bombing that happened 25 years ago Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
FILE – In this Feb. 26, 1993 file photo, emergency vehicles and personnel fill New York’s West Street following an underground explosion that rocked the World Trade Center. It was a terror attack that foreshadowed Sept. 11: the deadly World Trade Center bombing that happened 25 years ago Monday. (AP Photo/Betsy Herzog, File)
FILE – In this Feb. 26, 1993 file photo, firefighters remove a victim on a gurney outside one of the World Trade Center’s twin towers in New York, after a car bomb in an underground garage rocked the complex. It was a terror attack that foreshadowed Sept. 11: the deadly World Trade Center bombing that happened 25 years ago Monday. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
FILE – In this Feb. 27, 1993 file photo, Port Authority and New York City Police officers view the damage caused by a truck bomb that exploded in the garage of New York’s World Trade Center. It was a terror attack that foreshadowed Sept. 11: the deadly World Trade Center bombing that happened 25 years ago Monday. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)
FILE – In this Feb. 26, 1993 file photo, victims of a truck bombing at the World Trade Center in New York are treated at the scene. It was a terror attack that foreshadowed Sept. 11: the deadly World Trade Center bombing that happened 25 years ago Monday. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler, File)
FILE – In this Feb. 26, 1993 file photo, two New York City police officers help an injured women away from the scene of the World Trade Center truck bomb attack. It was a terror attack that foreshadowed Sept. 11: the deadly World Trade Center bombing that happened 25 years ago Monday. (AP Photo/Joe Tabacca, File)
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