<P> El Sayyid Nosair, one of the blind sheikh's men, was arrested in 1991 for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane . According to prosecutors, "the Red" Mahmud Abouhalima, also convicted in the bombing, told Wadih el Hage to buy the . 357 caliber revolver used by Nosair in the Kahane shooting . In the initial court case in NYS Criminal Court Nosair was acquitted of murder but convicted of gun charges (in a related and follow - up case in Federal Court, he was convicted). Dozens of Arabic bomb - making manuals and documents related to terrorist plots were found in Nosair's New Jersey apartment, with manuals from Army Special Warfare Center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, secret memos linked to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and 1,440 rounds of ammunition . (Lance 2004 26) </P> <P> According to the transcript of his trial, Yousef hoped that his explosion would topple Tower 1 which would fall into Tower 2, killing the occupants of both buildings, which he estimated to be about 250,000 people in vengeance for America's support for Israel against Palestine . According to the journalist Steve Coll, Yousef mailed letters to various New York newspapers just before the attack, in which he claimed he belonged to "Liberation Army, Fifth Battalion". These letters made three demands: an end to all US aid to Israel, an end to US diplomatic relations with Israel, and a pledge by the United States to end interference "with any of the Middle East countries' interior affairs ." He stated that the attack on the World Trade Center would be merely the first of such attacks if his demands were not met . In his letters, Yousef admitted that the World Trade Center bombing was an act of terrorism, but this was justified because "the terrorism that Israel practices (which America supports) must be faced with a similar one ." </P> <P> On Friday, February 26, 1993, Ramzi Yousef and a Jordanian friend, Eyad Ismoil, drove a yellow Ryder van into Lower Manhattan, and pulled into the public parking garage beneath the World Trade Center around noon . They parked on the underground B - 2 level . Yousef ignited the 20 - foot fuse, and fled . Twelve minutes later, at 12: 17: 37 p.m., the bomb exploded in the underground garage, generating an estimated pressure of 150,000 psi . The bomb opened a 30 - m (98 ft) wide hole through four sublevels of concrete . The detonation velocity of this bomb was about 15,000 ft / s (4.5 km / s). Initial news reports indicated a main transformer may have blown, before it became clear that a bomb had exploded in the basement . </P> <P> The bomb instantly cut off the World Trade Center's main electrical power line, knocking out the emergency lighting system . The bomb caused smoke to rise to the 93rd floor of both towers, including through the stairwells which were not pressurized, and smoke went up the damaged elevators in the World Trade Center Towers 1 & 2 . With thick smoke filling the stairwells, evacuation was difficult for building occupants and led to many smoke inhalation injuries . Hundreds were trapped in elevators in the towers when the power was cut, including a group of 17 kindergartners, on their way down from the South Tower observation deck, who were trapped between the 35th and 36th floors for five hours . </P>

What was in the basement of the world trade center