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Revision as of 23:27, 10 December 2003 by WhisperToMe (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Ramzi Ahmed Yousef or Ramzi Mohammed Yousef (also transliterated as Ramsi Yousef, Ramzi Youssef, and other ways), birth name possibly Abdul Basit Karim is believed to be the mastermind behind the first World Trade Center attack. He is also an alleged Al-Qaeda agent.
Yousef used Najy Awaita Haddad, Paul Vijay, Adam Sali, Doctor Richard Smith, and 17 other aliases to obscure his identity.
His nationality is disputed. Both Yousef and his uncle, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, are believed to be from the Baluchistan province of Pakistan. Yousef was probably raised in Kuwait. The man thought to be the father was a guest worker. Guest workers were treated as second-class citizens in Kuwait.
Introduction into international terrorism
Yousef attended college in the United Kingdom. He studied electrical engineering there. Starting in the late 1980's, Yousef took spring break trips to Pakistan.
In 1992, Yousef entered the United States with a false Iraqi passport. His partner, Ahmed Ajaj, who also had a false passport, was arrested on the spot after his passport was proven false and instructions for making bombs was found in his luggage. INS holding cells were overcrowded, so Youssef was told to come back in one month. Youssef travelled around New York and New Jersey and called Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a controversial Muslim preacher, via cell phone. Youssef got the manuals back from his partner. He got conspirators and tried obtaining mixing chemicals to make a bomb. After a hospital stay from a car accident, Youssef got back the manuals from his car, which was in a police impound.
He then rented a Ryder van. On February 26, 1993, the van was driven into the garage of the World Trade Center. Youssef escaped to Pakistan hours later. After meeting up with terrorist friends, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, he attempted more terrorist attacks. His attack in Iran worked, but his plot to kill then-president Benazir Bhutto did not work. In a meeting with Mohammed and Abdul Hakim Murad, an old friend, they discussed airplanes and training to fly aircraft.
Grander plans
The trio were sent to Manila, Philippines. Youssef made assasination plots to kill Pope John Paul II and United States President Bill Clinton. The second plan was dismissed. The first became part of Operation Bojinka, but would not get implemented after the plot got exposed.
While he was in the Philippines, Yousef courted local women in clubs and went on scuba trips. The scuba trips may have been fronts for meetings with Abu Sayyaf. Yousef allegedly trained twenty people on that meeting.
Youssef and Mohammed started crafting Operation Bojinka. The plot would have had catastrophic consequences if it was carried out. The plot was abandoned after an apartment fire occurred in Manila, Philippines.
The fire was started when one of Youssef's friends started a chemical fire in his apartment. Youssef's plan was discovered on a notebook personal computer inside his apartment, two weeks before it would have been implemented. Murad was sent to the apartment to retrieve the computer after the fire department left, but he was arrested and later tortured. He confessed to being part of the Bojinka plan.
Arrested
In February 1995, Yousef was arrested in a hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan and sent to a prison in New York, New York, United States. He had been betrayed by a man he tried to recruit. Yousef was found with fingers with chemical burns on them.
On November 12, 1997 Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the 1993 bombing and in 1998 he was convicted of "seditious conspiracy" to bomb the towers.
He is currently held in the Supermax Prison in Florence, Colorado. He had the Unabomber, Terry Nichols, and Timothy McVeigh as his cellmates.
His friend Khalid Sheik Mohammed would succeed in launching the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, which were built from parts of Operation Bojinka. He too would be arrested after the United States campaign in Afghanistan.