Today in History: Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of world trade center bombing goes on trial

New Delhi: The World Trade Center bombing on February 26, 1993 was intended to kill thousands of people but It failed to do so and took six lives though thousands of people got injured.The blast carved a massive crater in the underground garage at the World Trade Center.The world trade centre blast hit hard the whole world and killed six and injuring 1,000 with smoke or debris.Ramzi Yousef is known as the mastermind and the main perpetrators of the blast.He was arrested In 1995 at a guest house in Islamabad, Pakistan, by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and U.S. Diplomatic Security Service.It took two years to catch Ramzi Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the bombing. It has taken another two and a half years to start his trial.On 5 August 1997, Yousef went on trial, and was sentence to life imprisonment without parole in January 1998.As per reports, Yousef flew into the U.S. six months before the February 1993 bombing. He arrived with a fake Iraqi passport, requested political asylum and took up with a handful of Muslim extremists in New Jersey. Then he started ordering chemicals to make a bomb.Yousef ordered 1,000 pounds (454 kgs) of urea and 100 gallons (378.5 liters) of nitric acid which, when mixed together "makes a powerful explosion." He later ordered hydrogen "which gave the bomb an extra kick."Then he called Ismoil, a childhood friend from Kuwait who was living in Dallas, to come help drive the bomb in a rental van into the Trade Center garage.Both of them took a rented yellow Ryder van into the B-2 level of the public parking area and "at 12:18 p.m. EST, the bomb exploded, killing six people these men did not even know."Yousef was tried in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. There he stated: "Yes, I am a terrorist, and proud of it as long as it is against the U.S. government and against Israel, because you are more than terrorists; you are the one who invented terrorism and using it every day. You are butchers, liars and hypocrites."