Plot
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| Path to Paradise: The Untold Story of the World Trade Center Bombing | |
|---|---|
| Screenplay by | Ned Curren |
| Directed by | Leslie Libman Larry Williams |
| Starring | Peter Gallagher |
| Theme music composer | Mitchell Froom |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Producer | Amy Kaufman |
| Cinematography | Jean de Segonzac |
| Editor | Cindy Mollo |
| Running time | 91 minutes |
| Production company | HBO NYC Productions |
| Release | |
| Original network | HBO |
| Original release | June 14, 1997 |
Path to Paradise: The Untold Story of the World Trade Center Bombing is a 1997 American television film that depicts the events surrounding the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. [1] The film was directed by Larry Williams and Leslie Libman. [2] [3] It stars Peter Gallagher and Marcia Gay Harden, [4] and features Andreas Katsulas as Omar Abdel-Rahman [5] and Art Malik as Ramzi Yousef. [6] The film premiered on HBO in June 1997. [7] [8]
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Filming occurred New Jersey and Manhattan. [9]
At the time, the film attracted criticism for how it depicted Arabs and Muslims. [10] A 1997 report by The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee states, "[Path to Paradise] left viewers with the distinct impression that Arabs and Muslims in general are violent terrorists who will continue to attack Americans. One of the film's clear messages was that Arab immigrants are a threat to the United States and are likely to support acts of terrorism [...] Not once did the film suggest that the overwhelming majority of Arabs and Muslims in the United States condemned the bombing and feared the backlash that it might cause on their communities." [11]
It was scheduled for a repeat broadcast on HBO the week of the 9/11 attacks. HBO pulled it from its schedule following the attacks. [7]
The following timeline is a chronological list of all the major events leading up to, during, and immediately following the September 11 attacks against the United States in 2001 timeline starts with the completion of the first World Trade Center tower in 1970 through the first anniversary of the attacks in 2002.
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, , commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", was a blind Egyptian Islamist militant who served a life sentence at the Federal Medical Center, Butner near Butner, North Carolina, United States. Formerly a resident of New York City, Abdel-Rahman and nine others were convicted of seditious conspiracy in 1995. His prosecution grew out of investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
John Patrick O'Neill was an American counter-terrorism expert who worked as a special agent and eventually a Special Agent in Charge in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 1995, O'Neill began to intensely study the roots of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing after he assisted in the capture of Ramzi Yousef, who was the leader of that plot.
Ramzi Ahmed Yousef is a Pakistani convicted terrorist who was one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434; he was also a co-conspirator in the Bojinka plot. In 1995, he was arrested by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and U.S. Diplomatic Security Service at a guest house in Islamabad, Pakistan, while trying to set a bomb in a doll, then extradited to the United States.
The Bojinka plot was a large-scale, three-phase terrorist attack planned by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for January 1995. They planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II; blow up 11 airliners in flight from Asia to the United States with the goal of killing approximately 4,000 passengers and shutting down air travel around the world; and crash a plane into the headquarters of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Fairfax County, Virginia.
Abdul Hakim Ali Hashim Murad is a Pakistani Islamist terrorist, who was a co-conspirator in the Bojinka plot—the forerunner to the September 11 attacks. In 1996, he was convicted in the United States of trying to blow up a dozen airliners and was sentenced to life in prison.
Marcia Gay Harden is an American actress. She is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards.
Laurie Mylroie is an American author and analyst who has written extensively on Iraq and the War on Terror. The National Interest first published this work in an article entitled, "The World Trade Center Bombing: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why it Matters." In her book Study of Revenge (2000), Mylroie laid out her argument that the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein had sponsored the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and subsequent terrorist attacks. She claimed those attacks were part of an ongoing war that Saddam waged against America following the cease-fire to the 1991 Gulf War. Less than a year after her book was published, the September 11 attacks occurred. Mylroie subsequently adopted the view that Saddam had been responsible for the attacks, defending it on many occasions, including before the 9/11 Commission.
On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists took control of four commercial aircraft and used them as suicide weapons in a series of four coordinated acts of terrorism to strike the World Trade Center in New York City, The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and an additional target in Washington, D.C. Two aircraft hit the World Trade Center while the third hit the Pentagon. A fourth plane did not arrive at its target, but crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after a passenger revolt. The intended target is believed to have been the United States Capitol. As a result, 2,977 victims were killed, making it the deadliest foreign attack on U.S. soil, exceeding Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, which killed 2,335 members of the United States Armed Forces and 68 civilians. The effort was carefully planned by al-Qaeda, which sent 19 terrorists to take over Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 aircraft, operated by American Airlines and United Airlines.
Ahmed Mohammad Ajaj is a Palestinian citizen who is convicted of participating in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He is currently serving an 84-year sentence at USP Coleman for taking part in the bombing.
Yusuf is a male name meaning "God increases". It is the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew name Yosef and the English name Joseph. It is widely used in many parts of the world by Arabs of all Abrahamic religions, including Middle Eastern Jews, Arab Christians, and Muslims.
Numerous civilians, including men, women, children, government officials, activists, secular intellectuals and clerics have been victims of assassination, terrorism, or violence against non-combatants, over the course of modern Iranian history.
Eyad Ismoil is a Jordanian citizen who, for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was convicted by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York of conspiracy in 1997.
Fred Burton is geopolitical intelligence platform Stratfor's chief security officer and a New York Times bestselling author.
Leslie Libman is an American television director. She also directed commercials and music videos.
Urban terrorism is the targeted use of terrorism in urban populations in order to cause the most harm, injury, death, or property damage. Since urban areas have significantly higher population densities than rural areas, targeting those areas can maximize the effect of the terrorist attack.
Peter Lance is an American journalist and author. He is a five-time winner of the News & Documentary Emmy Award, the recipient of a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, and other accolades detailed below. In April 2010, Lance was appointed as a one-year visiting scholar at the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing was a terrorist attack carried out on February 26, 1993, when a van bomb detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. The 1,336 lb (606 kg) urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to send the North Tower crashing into its twin, the South Tower, bringing down both skyscrapers and killing tens of thousands of people. It failed to do so, but murdered six people, including a pregnant woman, and caused over a thousand injuries. About 50,000 people were evacuated from the buildings that day.
A bomb explosion occurred at the shrine of Ali al-Ridha, the eighth Imam of Shia, on 20 June 1994 in a crowded prayer hall in Mashhad, Iran. To maximize the number of casualties, the explosion took place on Ashura, one of the holiest days for Shia muslims, when hundreds of pilgrims had gathered to commemorate the death of their third Imam, Husayn ibn Ali.
Gregory J. Scarpa Jr. is an American mobster and former caporegime in the Colombo crime family and government informant. He is the son of hitman and fellow caporegime in the family Gregory Scarpa. During the 1990s, Scarpa was sentenced to 40 years in prison for racketeering, and provided the government with information about terrorist tactics and possible attacks orchestrated by Ramzi Yousef. Scarpa Jr. has since won compassionate release from prison as a result of his failing health and terminal illness.