A man born in Indiana who admitted playing a significant role in the first World Trade Center attack remains at large more than three decades after the 1993 bombing.
The story of Abdul Rahman Yasin is remarkable and baffling in a number of ways, most notably in how the Iraqi-American got away.
The FBI searched Yasin’s New Jersey apartment following the terrorist attack, found incriminating evidence, and subsequently let him go — twice. He then fled the United States, and years later, Bush administration officials cited Yasin, who was raised in Baghdad, as proof that Iraq was involved in 9/11.
In 2002, Yasin was interviewed by 60 Minutes, where he detailed how he helped put the massive bomb together that was put in a rented van and exploded in a garage in the North Tower. Six people were killed, and more than 1,000 people were injured. After the CBS interview, Yasin has not been seen publicly. The U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003.
Yasin, who was born in 1960, has been on the FBI’s most wanted list for the last 25 years with a reward of up to $5 million.
Yasin claimed he was manipulated by Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind who built the bomb. Yousef befriended Yasin when they both lived in an apartment complex in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Initially, Yousef wanted to bomb Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn, but then opted to target the World Trade Center, according to Yasin. The plan was for the bomb to trigger the North Tower to fall into the South Tower. After his arrest in 1995, Yousef vowed that the towers would be targeted again and fall at a later date.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Yousef’s uncle, helped devise the 9/11 plot that took both towers down eight years later.
The 1993 bombing should have been seen as a “wake-up call,” former New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said. He and other national security experts lamented that more steps weren’t taken to prevent 9/11.
Yasin is said to be the only terrorist who was not apprehended in the 1993 bombing. Yet, Harvey Kushner, who worked on the 1993 case, disputes that claim.
Kushner, a widely recognized terrorism expert who worked closely with the FBI in 1993, told the Washington Examiner that Yasin wasn’t the only one who dodged justice. He mentioned there were unindicted co-conspirators, though they aren’t on the FBI’s most wanted list.
There were many opportunities for U.S. officials to arrest Yasin. The FBI said Yasin voluntarily gave them valuable information about the bombers, and that was part of the agency’s rationale not to detain him. Neil Herman, a former FBI official who helped lead the 1993 investigation, admitted to “60 Minutes” that letting Yasin go was a “mistake.”
Kushner said letting Yasin slip away was a “great embarrassment” for the FBI. Both Herman and Kushner indicated some within the bureau didn’t want to let Yasin go free.
Iraq arrested Yasin and offered him to the U.S. during the Clinton administration, though, because of incompetence or miscommunication, Yasin was not turned over. A month after 9/11, Iraq again told the U.S. it was willing to deliver Yasin, though distrust and a breakdown in negotiations again kept Yasin from being in U.S. custody.
In his 60 Minutes interview, which was conducted from an Iraqi prison, Yasin said no one from Iraq told him to go to terrorize the U.S. Yasin also said he was “very sorry” for what he did.
Former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dick Cheney, CIA director James Woolsey, and some lawmakers cited Yasin in making the case that the Iraqi government was involved in 9/11. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, however, didn’t mention him when he delivered his historic 2003 address to the United Nations that spelled out the U.S. rationale for invading Iraq. The 9/11 Commission also doesn’t mention Yasin in its report.
While Yasin did help kill Americans, he wasn’t a major player in the Yousef scheme, Kushner said.
Twenty-five years after 9/11, there are some unanswered questions about the terrorist event that upended global politics, most notably whether Saudi Arabia was aware of the plot. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia.
Kushner said there are legitimate reasons why some information hasn’t yet been released to the public. Asked if that classified material is newsworthy, Kushner said it is and indicated more information will likely be released eventually in the years to come.