New York commemorates 1993 World Trade Center bombing

Feb. 26 (UPI) -- A crowd in New York City gathered Tuesday to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the first terrorist attack at the World Trade Center.

The ceremony at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum was held in honor of six people who died, including a pregnant woman, and the more than 1,000 people injured when a truck bomb exploded in an underground garage at the base of the World Trade Center in Manhattan on Feb. 26, 1993.

"On the anniversaries of these terrible attacks, we believe the greatest tribute we can pay to those who died and those who were injured is to bring this site back with more energy and more vibrancy than ever before," Rick Cotton, executive director of the New York Port Authority, said of the 1993 bombing and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack.

Charles Maikish, the World Trade Center's former director, said the 1993 attack was "a lesson, hard-learned and a wake-up call" that led to policies that helped prepare for the possibility of further attacks, including those on Sept. 11, 2001.

"Many lives were saved on 9/11 by virtue of the wake-up call we received in 1993," he said.

At the close of the ceremony, relatives read the names of those who were killed in the bombing.

In November 1997, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and Eyad Ismoil were found guilty of plotting and carrying out the attack following a three-month trial.