A New York jury on Wednesday ruled that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was negligent and can be sued for damages from the 1993 truck bombing at the World Trade Center, setting the stage for a potential raft of lawsuits.

Islamist militants exploded the truck bomb in an underground parking garage of the twin towers on February 26, 1993, killing six people and wounding more than 1,000.

The jury ruling in the state-court case means relatives of the six people who were killed and the hundreds of other victims and businesses affected by the blast may proceed with lawsuits for damages against the Port Authority.

The trial presented the jury with the awkward task of judging the case without taking into account the destruction of the twin towers more than eight years later, on September 11, 2001, when al Qaeda hijackers crashed two jetliners into them.

The judge banned lawyers from mentioning September 11 in closing arguments and told the jury to disregard events that may have taken place years after the 1993 attack.

Lawyers in the case say the Port Authority could face many millions of dollars in damages, and possibly up to a billion. While the authority will have the right to appeal the decision it may also try to settle some cases.

Around 400 plaintiffs involved in 100 cases alleged the Port Authority failed to act for years on numerous warnings that the World Trade Center was vulnerable to attack long before the bombing.

The jury ruled that the Port Authority was negligent by not keeping the garage reasonably safe on that date, and secondly that that negligence was a substantial factor in allowing the bombing to occur.

No comment.