The 1993 New York City landmark bomb plot was a planned attack on well-known landmark targets throughout New York City, with one goal of causing a distraction that would create an opportunity to assassinate the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attack was foiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation before it could be carried out.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation had a confidential informant, Emad Salem, infiltrate the group of plotters. Federal officers arrested the main suspects in June 1993, and in 1995, ten defendants, including Omar Abdel-Rahman were convicted of 48 charges related to the plot.
Planned attacks The conspirators planned to assassinate Mubarak in a "suicide mission" during an April visit to the United Nations headquarters in New York City. Mubarak arrived in the United States on April 4, 1993, but did not travel to New York City. The plotters believed they had an informant inside their group who leaked their plans, but in reality the FBI did not have their informant in place until late June.
The group decided to try again in September 1993 during the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations. They intended to infiltrate hotels by masquerading as employees to get close to Mubarak. The other attacks in the city were used as distractions and to inflict chaos throughout the city. Bombs would be used on the bridge and tunnels while the other terrorists would raid the hotels with guns.
The six targets to be attacked were the UN headquarters, the Lincoln Tunnel, the Holland Tunnel, the George Washington Bridge, the St. Regis and the UN Plaza hotels, and the FBI's main New York office at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building. The plotters also discussed planting a total of 12 bombs around the city targeting Jews and Jewish organization that would be detonated simultaneously.
The group also planned to assassinate US Senator Al D'Amato and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Nosair also proposed other targets, including New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Jewish politician, and Alvin Schlesinger, a judge who had tried him in a previous case.
The hotels were known to host prestigious guests such as the US ambassador to the United Nations and the US secretary of state, who stayed at the Waldorf during UN sessions. The hotels are also known to host several prominent business leaders. Attacking the locations would thus create chaos in the financial and diplomatic aspects of New York.
The planned attacks on the Holland and Lincoln tunnels and the George Washington Bridge would create transportation chaos, as these were the only three direct vehicular crossings of the Hudson River between New Jersey and Manhattan. If the attacks were successful, police, civilians, and other respondents would have faced major challenges entering and leaving the city to and from New Jersey. Co-conspirators indicated that they intended to drive bomb-laden cars into the tunnels, stall the cars in the middle, and detonate them three minutes after leaving the cars.
In tape-recorded conversations, the attackers also discussed attacks on the Diamond District in Manhattan, an area heavily represented by Jewish businesspeople who participate in a local one-block industry that accounted for 95% of the diamonds imported into the country.Goldman, John J.; and Serrano, Richard A. "Extremists Plotted Against Jews, Prosecutors Say", The Los Angeles Times, June 30, 1993. Accessed May 14, 2026, via Newspapers.com. "Plotters who planned to blow up the United Nations and other prominent targets also discussed exploding a powerful bomb in mid-town Manhattan's crowded diamond district to inflict heavy casualties on Jewish businessmen, federal prosecutors charged Tuesday. Government lawyers said the scheme was revealed when some of the alleged terrorists were secretly tape-recorded in a car as they scouted potential targets.... The diamond district, a single block crowded with retail shops and merchants between 5th and 6th avenues, is the center of America's $5.6-billion trade in gems, where 95% of stones entering the country are sold, cut or polished." The plotter said that attacking the neighborhood would be similar to "hitting Israel itself."
Investigation FBI surveillance The FBI had been closely monitoring the plan throughout 1992 and 1993 but intensified its investigation after the World Trade Center bombing in February 1993, which killed six people. The FBI obtained warrants to listen to phone calls to and from Abdel-Rahmen's Sudanese driver, a confidential informant.
Emad Salem, a former Egyptian army officer was an informant who was recruited to infiltrate the close circle of Abdel-Rahman. Around May 7, 1993, Salem started meeting regularly with the defendants. He recorded 150 hours of conversations over five months.
The FBI had also been monitoring the plotters through video surveillance hidden in their safe house, where bombs were being developed. Combined, the video surveillance and the use of an inside man greatly contributed into foiling the plot. In the final weeks of the investigation, the FBI monitored the plot almost constantly. At one point, when Senator D'Amato and Assemblyman Hikind received bodyguards, agents mistakenly feared that their investigation had been exposed.
Arrests On June 16, 1993, Egyptian immigrant Abdo Mohammed Haggag was charged for conspiring to assassinate Mubarak. Eight conspirators were arrested in raids on June 24, 1993, after Salem had observed the group for five months. Five of those arrested on June 24 were mixing chemicals for the bombs when they were arrested. It was revealed that the conspirators had also conducted test bombings before the World Trade Center bombing. They had also made preparations for a quick escape, which led the FBI to conclude that the suspects needed to be arrested quickly. A ninth suspect was arrested on June 30. When Nosair was arrested, a search of his apartment revealed "formulas for the construction of bombs" as well as video and audio tapes advocating the destruction of tall buildings.
Abdel-Rahman turned himself into the police on July 2.
The government announced the indictment of a tenth suspect on July 8. After the arrests were made, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey increased security on its six river crossings between New York and New Jersey, which included the three crossings targeted in the bombing plot.
Trials The government sought RICO charges including the 1993 planned assassinations and landmark bombings, as well as the 1990 assassination of Meir Kahane. Using this strategy, the government would not need to prove that Abdel-Rahman directly ordered his followers to blow up any targets, and would also get a second chance to prosecute Nosair, this time with federal charges to avoid double jeopardy. The prosecution maintained that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was also part of the conspiracy, but neither Abdel-Rahman nor any co-defendants were formally accused of any role in that attack.
William Kunstler agreed to represent three of the suspects, including Abdel-Rahman and Nosair. However, Federal Judge Michael Mukasey later ruled that Abdel-Rahman and the two other suspects would have to be represented separately and that Kunstler and Ronald L. Kuby would have to choose which defendants to represent. Abdel-Rahman later offered to represent himself after the two lawyers could not agree on who would represent him. A bail hearing for one of the suspects, Clement Rodney Hampton-El, was held at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on July 8. The court found that Salem's tapes supported only some of the charges against Hampton-El. The federal government wanted to try the suspects in New York because of the severity of the charges. Complicating matters, some of the suspects were also being arraigned on drug charges.
On August 25, 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno announced that she would prosecute the bombing case because of more evidence. That was a reversal from her position two months earlier, when she had said that there was insufficient evidence for prosecution. The same day, Abdel-Rahman was formally indicted in connection with three crimes: the landmark bombing plot, the World Trade Center bombing, and the 1990 assassination of Meir Kahane. The case against the defendants was prosecuted by lead prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy. One of the defendants, Siddig Ali, changed his plea to guilty, and began cooperating with the prosecution, including allowing prosecutors to view his notes.
Salem ultimately testified against Abdel-Rahman and other terrorists despite earlier refusing to do so. Salem had recorded tapes in which the defendants sought to prevent Abdel-Rahman from being directly involved in the terror plot so that he would not be implicated. The defense lawyers unsuccessfully attempted to have all 13 defendants tried separately. New defense counsel were hired, and in September 1994, Judge Mukasey postponed the trial's opening date to December so that defense counsel could craft new arguments. In November 1994, Mukasey rescheduled the date to January 1995 because Abdel-Rahman had contracted pneumonia.
In February 1995, Siddig Ali pled guilty to the terror plot and also named some of the co-defendants as complicit in the plot. In 1999 Siddig Ali pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy as well as other charges and received 11 years in prison after U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote a letter to Judge Michael B. Mukasey describing his extensive cooperation.
Once the trial started, Salem testified about the details of the bomb plot. Defense lawyers cross-examining Salem argued that he was not credible because he had lied several times in the past, including when he was gaining his US citizenship. However, Salem testified that the defendants had confided the details of the plot to him. In May 1995, one of the defendants, Abdo Mohammed Haggag, agreed to testify against the other 11 defendants in exchange for all his charges being dropped. Salem testified that Abdel-Rahman, during a 13-hour-long bus ride from New Jersey to Detroit, had directed him to kill Mubarak. Adam Hamawy was called by the defense and testified that he had been a passenger on that van trip and had not heard Abdel-Rahman call for the assassination of the Egyptian president. Hamawy was not charged or accused of wrong-doing.Neumeister, Larry, via Associated Press. "Sheik gave no death order, trial told", The Jersey Journal, July 26, 1995. Accessed May 14, 2026, via Newspapers.com. "A medical student who was with Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman when he allegedly told an FBI informant to kill Egypt's president testified yesterday at the sheik's terrorism trial that he never heard such a command. The student, Adam Hishan Hamawy, 26, of Old Bridge, N.J., said he was seated directly behind the sheik during the 13-hour journey in a minivan from Avenel, N.J., to Detroit during Thanksgiving weekend in 1991."Fried, Joseph P. "Defense Witness Says Sheik Never Urged Assassination", The New York Times, July 26, 1995. Accessed May 14, 2026. "Contradicting testimony by the Government's chief informer, a supporter of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman testified yesterday that the militant Muslim cleric had not urged the informer to murder President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.... The informer, Emad Salem, testified earlier in the seven-month-old trial that Mr. Abdel Rahman, during a 13-hour drive from New Jersey to Detroit in 1991, urged him to kill Mr. Mubarak. But yesterday's witness, Adam Hisham Hamawy, said that he had sat immediately behind Mr. Abdel Rahman and the informer in the small van and had not heard the cleric make any such statement during the long ride."