Survivors of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing slammed mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani for his smiley pic with a controversial imam federal prosecutors considered an “indicted co-conspirator” in the attack.
Mamdani, 34, posted a photo of himself smiling 75-year-old Imam Siraj Wahhaj on Friday, calling him a “leader and pillar” of the Muslim community in Brooklyn and across the country.
But critics were quick to raise Wahhaj’s controversial past — including people who survived the terror attack he was accused of helping orchestrate.
“Nobody should minimize what happened,” said former Port Authority executive director Stan Brezenoff, whose offices were in the World Trade Center when Islamic extremists detonated a massive car bomb in the North Tower’s parking garage in an attempt to topple both towers. Six people were killed and more than a thousand injured.
“It was a hellish experience dwarfed by the unimaginable atrocity on 9/11,” he told The Post, explaining that the 2001 attack that succeeded in destroying the towers eight years later erased the original attack from many people’s memories — but not for New Yorkers who were there.
“The hospitals were overwhelmed,” Brezenoff said, recalling how the towers were closed “for months” and that workers were terrified to return when they re-opened.
“People didn’t want to go back to work,” he said. “There was trepidation.”
Wahhaj was never charged in the attack, but he came under scrutiny from federal investigators after it was learned some of the men behind it had attended his mosque.
Prosecutors believed he was somehow involved, but never had the evidence to bring charges. Some later criticized the investigation, saying its scope of suspects was too broad, the New York Times reported.
Wahhaj himself vehemently denied any involvement — but later defended some of the attackers, and called the FBI and CIA the “real terrorists.”
Allegations of involvement in the 1993 attack aside, Wahhaj has a long history of demonizing American society, and supporting people considered terrorists by many.
Mamdani didn’t reply to requests for comment on his association with Wahhaj, but for some who were at the WTC in 1993 — or had friends and family there — any relationship is unacceptable.
“These incidents are very personal to people in New York. They are our family members, our friends, our neighbors, people we care about,” said Maria Danzilo, 69, whose sister was in the North Tower the day of the ’93 attack and had to flee through a smoke-filled stairwell.
“Why trigger people like this? It seems unnecessary. Don’t you want to heal the past? Do we really want to make people so upset? It just seems like it’s not good for the city after so many terrible things have happened,” said Danzilo, who also took to X to express her anger.
“My sister was in the 1993 WTC bombing — trapped on a high floor, forced to climb down smoke-filled stairs. She suffered serious smoke inhalation and lasting trauma,” she wrote in the post, explaining that her sister fled NYC for DC in fear, only to end up a block from the Pentagon when it was attacked on 9/11.
“These weren’t abstract ‘events’ for so many New Yorkers. They were life changing events,” said Danzil, who works for the pro-Andrew Cuomo PAC Fix the City, but said her anger at Mamdani’s post with Wahhaj had nothing to do with supporting his opponent.
And Port Authority’s current Police Benevolent Association president Frank Conti can’t imagine how anybody would consider Mamdani a viable candidate after showing his own support for Wahhaj.
“Anyone who votes, supports or endorses Mamdani must suffer from a critical memory lapse of the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center,” said Conti. “What happened to the New York City mantra, ‘Never Forget’?”
The post Survivors of ‘93 World Trade Center terror attack bash Zohran Mamdani for smiley pic with unindicted co-conspirator: ‘Hellish experience’ appeared first on New York Post.
