CASPER
New member
NEW YORK – Another failed terrorist plot. Another mass sigh of relief.
The Times Square car bombing attempt last weekend was just the latest in a long list of schemes that for nearly two decades have placed New York City squarely at the center of a sinister target. A breed of hardened wariness has taken hold for many New Yorkers — the price they must pay to live in the nation's largest city.
"I've never felt as though I was out of a bull's-eye," said Lee Ielpi, a retired firefighter whose son, also a firefighter, died in the Sept. 11 attacks. "The event did not end on 9/11. The event has continued right on. ... These people are going to come back. Saturday just reinforces that."
There have been at least nine planned terrorist attacks in the city since Sept. 11, 2001. The terrorists involved hoped variously to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, to blow up financial institutions, to smuggle explosive materials into the city, to detonate explosives on the subway, to release cyanide into the subway system, to ignite an airport jet fuel pipeline and to collapse commuter train tunnels at ground zero.
And, in 1993, there was the first attack on the World Trade Center, where Islamic extremists exploded a rented van loaded with fertilizer in a parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.
More often than not, though, the schemes have failed. On Saturday, the smoking SUV was noticed without the explosives inside doing any damage. But for New Yorkers, the question always remains: What about next time?
The Times Square car bombing attempt last weekend was just the latest in a long list of schemes that for nearly two decades have placed New York City squarely at the center of a sinister target. A breed of hardened wariness has taken hold for many New Yorkers — the price they must pay to live in the nation's largest city.
"I've never felt as though I was out of a bull's-eye," said Lee Ielpi, a retired firefighter whose son, also a firefighter, died in the Sept. 11 attacks. "The event did not end on 9/11. The event has continued right on. ... These people are going to come back. Saturday just reinforces that."
There have been at least nine planned terrorist attacks in the city since Sept. 11, 2001. The terrorists involved hoped variously to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge, to blow up financial institutions, to smuggle explosive materials into the city, to detonate explosives on the subway, to release cyanide into the subway system, to ignite an airport jet fuel pipeline and to collapse commuter train tunnels at ground zero.
And, in 1993, there was the first attack on the World Trade Center, where Islamic extremists exploded a rented van loaded with fertilizer in a parking garage, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others.
More often than not, though, the schemes have failed. On Saturday, the smoking SUV was noticed without the explosives inside doing any damage. But for New Yorkers, the question always remains: What about next time?
