On February 26 , 1993 , the World Trade Center was bombed . A group of the conspirators were arrested , convicted , and imprisoned . There has been no strong argument that al-Qaeda was involved , although there have been allegations , including by a former Director of Central Intelligence , that Iraq supported the operational cell . In a PBS interview in October 2001 , former Clinton-era CIA Director James Woolsey argued a supposed link between Ramzi Youssef and the Iraqi intelligence services . He suggested the grand jury investigation turned up evidence pointing to Iraq that the Clinton Justice Department " brushed aside . " Neil Herman , who headed the FBI investigation , noted that despite Yasin 's presence in Baghdad , there was no evidence of Iraqi support for the attack . " We looked at that rather extensively , " he told CNN terrorism analyst Peter L. Bergen . " There were no ties to the Iraqi government . " Bergen writes , " In sum , by the mid - '90s , the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York , the F.B.I. , the U.S. Attorney 's office in the Southern District of New York , the C.I.A. , the N.S.C. , and the State Department had all found no evidence implicating the Iraqi government in the first Trade Center attack . " Claims that Saddam Hussein was behind the bombing are based on the research of Laurie Mylroie of the conservative American Enterprise Institute
World Trade Center was bombed
1993 World Trade Center bombing
International counter-terrorism activities of the CIA