I thought this might go unnoticed in other “9/11 foreknowledge” threads. Shortly after the 1993 WTC bombing (shortly as in no more than a year later; not sure how much less) I heard about a threat to the Holland Tunnel. Apparently some people who were connected with the crew who did the 1993 attack were arrested, and they had plans to bomb the tunnel, and, I think, other tunnels and bridges, which would have transformed Manhattan into Andersonville. The project was, IIRC, a long way from getting off the ground, but it had been fully thought out; at the time they were arrested, they were working on getting materials and doing more reconnaisance before setting up.
I can’t remember if I only heard this, or also read about it. My Newsweeks from that era are in storage, but I think I remember seeing a graphic of what would have happened if. Am I Ring C?
That would be the aborted series of attacks for which Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and several other co-conspirators received lengthy prison sentences in 1996. The group were convicted of plotting to bomb the FBI’s New York City offices, the UN, and several bridges and tunnels leading into Manhattan (enough transportation routes onto and off the island to cause a huge amount of chaos, if not necessarily enough to literally isolate Manhattan from the rest of the world).
Abdel-Rahman’s group is also alleged to have been behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
Quoting the OP:
“…transform Manhattan into Andersonville”
Oh, puleeeze! Sure, the Hudson and the East River are formidable transportation barriers, but there are portions of the Harlem River – which separates Manhattan from the Bronx (read: the mainland of the USA) – that barely qualify as a creek.
And the Harlem is crossed by MANY existing bridges (most of which are little-known, like the University Heights, the Washington, the McCombs Dam, the Broadway, the Willets Ave., the Third Ave., and a few more). Even if all the Harlem River bridges were targetted by terrorists, I have no doubt that the Army Corp. of Engineers could erect a few replacements in very short order.
Don’t forget by all the train tunnels - lets just say manhattan is well connected
stuyguy and k2dave: Okay then.
Incidentally, it looks as if the FBI’s Manhattan field office is going to be changing its job description soon. Manhattan has been the main counterterrorism office of the FBI for quite a while, but the WTC attacks damaged its clout fairly significantly, and the FBI is now looking to move the operation.
That leads me to wonder whether or not the bathrobe boys were motivated to return to the WTC in an attempt to smear the reputation of the counterterror unit there in Manhattan. It’s just idle speculation on my part, but the attack looks a little less totally insane if the target has some sort of value other than as a container for victims.