It begins in chaos, February 26, 1993.

A deafening explosion rips through the underground parking garage beneath the World Trade Center in New York City.

Smoke pours into the towers.

Six people are killed. Over 1,000 injured.

Emergency lights flicker, panic spreads.

But unlike September 11, 2001, the towers don't fall. Not because Ramsey Youssef

didn't want them to, but because his plan miscalculated the structural effect. But most Americans

didn't know at the time was that this was just a test run. The episode then rewinds. Ramsey Yusuf was

born in Kuwait in 1968 to Pakistani and Palestinian parents.

He grew up brilliant, multilingual, and angry.

A gifted engineering student who studied in the UK,

Yusuf was radicalized not on the battlefield, but in books,

classrooms, and through ideological mentorship.

His uncle, colleague Sheikh Mohammed, the eventual mastermind of 9-11, played a crucial role

in his worldview.

This wasn't about just hatred of America.

This was a strategic campaign, a new kind of war.

Listeners are pulled into his travels, how he trained

in al-Qaeda-linked camps in Afghanistan, forged passports, and slipped into the United States unnoticed

in 1992. He entered the country on a fake Iraqi passport and claimed asylum. And while the system

processed him, Yusuf was already assembling bombs in a New Jersey apartment,

recruiting accomplices and casing the Twin Towers.

...