Bojinka: The 1994 Blueprint for the 9/11 Attacks

Disclaimer
The purpose of this paper is to examine actions of United States government officials and/or agencies, according to official and mainstream media sources, for failures or potential failures to perform one or more of the following:

     1. Properly execute justice
     2. Operate with reasonable transparency
     3. Appropriately address instances of dereliction of duty
     4. Appropriately address instances of corruption

Every detail found in each section can also be found in one or more of the sources listed at the end of that section. This paper does not assert that every detail of every section is true. In fact, every detail cannot possibly be true since some details contradict others. This paper also does not assert that all sources cited espouse the overall narrative of their sections or of the paper as a whole. In fact, occasionally sources cited are skeptical or derisive of said narratives. Meaningful rebuttals, counter-rebuttals, etc., to the main points covered in this paper have been included to the best of my ability and awareness.

I do my own editing, which is not my strength. Please feel free to contact me through my website with any spelling/grammar errors you find.

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Summary
In 1994, 9/11 architect Khalid Sheik Mohammed, his nephew and ‘93 WTC Bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef, and fellow terrorist Abdul Hakim Murad planned a 9/11-style attack on the United States called “Bojinka,” which included piloting hijacked commercial airliners into the Pentagon, the White House, Congress, and the World Trade Center towers. The plot was exposed in Manila, Philippines, by the Philippine police and intelligence. All evidence of the plot was handed over to the FBI and CIA, but was subsequently ignored and/or destroyed.

The FBI claimed to investigate the four U.S. flights school at which Murad and 10 other hijacker pilots reportedly trained, but later turned out not to have even contacted Murad’s roommate at three of the flight schools.

During Yousef and Murad’s trial, the prosecution completely omitted the 9/11-style component of the Bojinka plan, and did not mention or call as a witness the primary Philippine intelligence chief who exposed it. The prosecution also narrowed the scope of the trial to avoid any mention of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, even though he was indicted for the plot. Subsequently, the FBI and CIA kept the worldwide manhunt for Khalid Sheik Mohammed a secret from all other nations, unlike the successful Ramzi Yousef manhunt, and somehow permitted Khalid Sheik Mohammed to regularly travel in and out of the United States for years while he made preparations for 9/11. 

The Bojinka Plot
In January of 1995, Abdul Hakim Murad was arrested Manila, Philippines after accidentally starting a fire in his apartment while working on a homemade bomb. Murad shared the apartment with Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of 1993 WTC bombing, who was caught one month later in Pakistan. The apartment had also been frequently visited by Yousef’s uncle, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the principle architect of 9/11. The three of them were working as operational partners on a terrorist plot known as “Bojinka,” a virtual blueprint for 9/11 hatched in 1994.

The Bojinka plot involved two waves. In the first wave, five-man teams would smuggle bombs onto 11 commercial airliners operated by United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Northwest Airlines during a two-day period in 1995. The bombs would utilize timing devices synchronized to go off as the planes reached the mid-Pacific, killing an estimated 4,000 passengers.

In the second wave, Murad and ten other pilots would hijack commercial airliners and crash them into high profile targets in the United States. Murad would target CIA headquarters. Other hijackers would target the Pentagon, the White House, Congress, the World Trade Center Towers, and one or more nuclear facilities. This information was gathered both from Ramzi Yousef’s computer after his arrest and from months of interrogations of Murad by the Philippine police, Philippine intelligence, the CIA, and FBI.

Sources:
Associated Press, 3/5/2002, “U.S. Authorities Warned of Hijack Attack Plotting in 1995”
CNN, 9/5/1996, “Plane Terror Suspects Convicted on All Counts”
CNN, 6/5/2002, “Insight”
CNN, 7/26/2003, “Philippines: U.S. missed 9/11 clues years ago; Allegation Follows Congressional Report Faulting Spy Agencies”
Los Angeles Times, 6/24/2002, “Early Scheme to Turn Jets Into Weapons”
Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002, “The Plot: How Terrorists Hatched a Simple Plan to Use Planes as Bombs”
New York Times, 5/18/2002, “Traces of Terrorism: The Warnings; FBI Knew for Years about Terror Pilot Training”
New York Times, 4/10/2011, “In Federal Court, a Docket Number for Global Terror”
Newsweek, 9/30/2001, “War on Terror: The Road To September 11”
PBS Frontline, 10/3/2002, “Al-Qaeda’s Global Context”
Washington Post, 9/23/2001, “Borderless Network of Terror”
Washington Post, 9/23/2001, “FBI Knew Terrorists Were Using Flight Schools”
Washington Post, 12/30/2001, “Bust and Boom”
9/11 Commission, 4/16/2001, “9/11 Commission Report,” pg. 145
9/11 Commission Staff Statement No. 15, “Overview of the Enemy”

U.S. Flight Schools Undergo Limited Investigation
Murad had spent years of flight school training in New York, Texas, California and North Carolina to earn his commercial pilot's license. During his interrogations, Murad gave the names and identities of ten other Middle Eastern men involved in the plot had who had likewise either already trained with him in the United States, or were undergoing training at that time. The names of the ten other pilots never appeared in the media, but according to the Associated Press:

“One was a Middle Eastern flight instructor… another a former soldier in the United Arab Emirates… [and others] came from Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.”

The FBI reportedly investigated, but no arrests were made. According to the Associated Press:

 “…officials said the FBI interviewed people at the flight schools highlighted by Filipino police but did not develop evidence that any of the other Middle Easterners other than Murad were directly plotting terrorism.”

Likewise, CNN stated:

“The FBI did investigate the flight schools named in the [Murad interrogation transcript] documents, but said it found no evidence of other planned attacks.”

However, the extent of the FBI’s investigation was indirectly called into question in June of 2002 and January of 2003 when the San Francisco Chronicle reported that a local man, Nasir Ali Mubarak, was investigated by the FBI for the first time for his relationship to Murad in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The reports covered a number of revealing details. Murad identified Mubarak as a close friend during his 1995 interrogations. Mubarak was a former United Arab Emirates soldier, which fit the Associated Press’ description of the one of ten pilots. And Murad and Mubarak roomed together while attending flight school in Texas, North Carolina, and New York.  

Mubarak was ultimately imprisoned for three months, prosecuted for terrorism links, not convicted, but still deported after he was caught lying to the authorities about other areas of his background. Regardless, the fact that the FBI never even contacted Mubarak until after 9/11 raised doubts about how seriously it originally investigated Murad’s confession.

Sources:
Associated Press, 3/5/2002, “U.S. Authorities Warned of Hijack Attack Plotting in 1995”
Washington Post, 9/23/2001, “FBI Knew Terrorists Were Using Flight Schools”
CNN, 6/5/2002, “Insight”
San Francisco Chronicle, 6/16/2002, “Feds Hold Man Linked to Terrorist”
San Francisco Chronicle, 1/12/2003, “When the War on Terrorism Hits Home”

Dispute over CIA/FBI Awareness of Hijacked Commercial Airliners Plot
There were disputing narratives in the media regarding whether the FBI and CIA received warnings about hijacked commercial airliners or only warnings about smaller, non-hijacked planes packed with explosives. However, the large majority of the reports specified hijacked commercial airliners, as did all original quotations of interrogation documentations and Philippine official statements.

Let’s take a look at some of the reports which specified hijacked commercial airliners. In May of 2002, CNN reported:

“Philippine investigators said that in 1995 they told the FBI about a terrorist plot to hijack commercial planes and slam them into the Pentagon, the CIA headquarters and other buildings.”

In June of 2002, CNN correspondent Maria Ressa reported that 9/11 was essentially an expanded continuation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Yousef’s repeated attempts to bring down the World Trade Center Towers, which began with the 1993 bombing and continued with Bojinka. She quoted Murad interrogation documents which explicitly stated that the Bojinka plot involved hijacking multiple commercial airliners. She also pointed out that these documents were handed over to the FBI, according to the Philippines President. Ressa stated:

“…Khalid Shaikh Mohammed… is one of the key planners of the September 11 attacks… he is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef… Both men were key figures in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Although they failed to bring the buildings down then, they didn't stop trying. Two years later, Yousef had another plan, outlined in this 1995 Philippine intelligence report obtained by CNN:

‘He will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger. Then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at the CIA headquarters. There will be no bomb. It is simply a suicidal mission.’

Other targets named: the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. The information is from Abdul Hakim Murad… All this information and more, says the Philippine president at that time, was handed over to the FBI.

…the 1995 Yousef plot may have been the blueprint for the September 11 attacks…”

Likewise, the Associated Press in March of 2002 reported:

“U.S. authorities were alerted as early as 1995 that [terrorists] …had proposed hijacking a plane to crash into federal buildings, according to documents and interviews with Filipino and U.S. authorities… Filipino police and intelligence officers, along with several secret police reports reviewed by The Associated Press, say [terrorist plotter] Murad's intentions… included suicide hijackings like those that occurred on Sept. 11… Filipino authorities told AP they shared the information immediately with FBI agents in Manila in 1995… Murad told authorities he discussed the suicide hijacking idea with [1993 WTC bomber Ramzi] Yousef… [and] they discussed targets like the CIA building and the Pentagon…”

The article went on to quote a 1995 Philippines police report by Colonel Rodolfo Mendoza who oversaw the Murad interrogations. The report stated:

“Murad's idea is that he will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger, then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at the CIA headquarters.”

The article also stated that Philippines authorities said they immediately shared this information with FBI agents who had traveled to Manila in 1995. It specifically quoted Robert Delfin, the Philippine National Police Intelligence Chief as stating:

“We shared that with the FBI.”

When 9/11 struck, both Mendoza and Delfin immediately thought it was Bojinka reborn. Mendoza said, “It's exactly as what Murad said before, ‘I will hijack a commercial plane and dive crash it.’” Delfin said, “This is it, this was what Murad was saying.”

Similarly, the Washington Post (12/30/2001) interviewed Philippine senior police inspector Aida Fariscal, who had performed a forensics investigation in Murad and Yousef’s apartment. When Fariscal watched 9/11 on television, she bolted upright and gasped, “Oh my God. Bojinka.” She later told the Post:

“The FBI knew all about Yousef's plans. They'd seen the files, been inside [the apartment]. The CIA had access to everything, too… This should have never, ever been allowed to happen.”

Another Washington Post article (9/23/2001) said a different unnamed likewise gasped, “It’s Bojinka,” when he saw the 9/11 attacks on television. He later lamented, “We told the Americans everything about Bojinka. Why didn't they pay attention?”

A July of 2003 CNN reported corroborated that the FBI not only received the Philippines police report, but even wrote a summary of it – only the summary completely omitted the second wave. It stated:

“CNN has obtained documents showing a Philippine police report about the terrorist plot of September 11, 2001 that was given to the FBI in 1995 and the U.S. agency's summary document of the report, which left out any mention of the plot.”

That same CNN report also pointed out that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the principle architect of 9/11, told U.S. interrogators in 2003 that the planning for 9/11 began in 1994 in the Philippines. It stated:

“Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of those [9/11] attacks… told his U.S. interrogators that planning for the attacks on New York and Washington began in 1994 in the Philippine capital.”

Finally, Philippines computer company CEO Rafael Garcia was hired by the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to decode encrypted files on Ramzi Yousef’s computer. Although he interpreted hijacked airliners as a second “alternative” rather than a second “wave” of Bojinka, he nevertheless corroborated the general narrative of hijacked commercial airliners being used to target U.S. landmarks and insisted the FBI received this information. He told the popular Philippine media outlet, Newsbreak Weekly:

“…we found another document that discussed a second alternative to crash the 11 planes into selected targets in the United States instead of just blowing them up in the air. These included the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia; the World Trade Center in New York; the Sears Tower in Chicago; the Transamerica Tower in San Francisco; and the White House in Washington, DC… I submitted my findings to NBI officials, who most certainly turned over the report and the computer to… the FBI… I have since had meetings with certain US authorities and they have confirmed to me that indeed, many things were done in response to my report.”

Newsbreak is the investigative arm of Rappler, one of the most influential news sites in the Philippines, co-founded by former CNN regional bureau chief, Maria Ressa. In 2005, Newsbreak’s subscriber list included more than half of the Philippine Congress, and virtually every foreign embassy in Manila.

Garcia stated that Philippine intelligence officials turned over Ramzi’s computer to the FBI after he finished decoding its files. However, Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist David Kocieniewski, writing for Newsday, reported that the CIA used at least three different deletion programs to erase crucial evidence from the computer, which prompted the FBI to open an investigation against the CIA. Kocieniewski stated:

“Some crucial computer evidence against notorious terrorist suspect Ramzi Yousef has been destroyed, and the FBI has begun an investigation into whether the CIA is responsible…”

 “[The CIA] provided the FBI with a summary of the files… But when the CIA turned over the actual computer and disks, Justice Department experts determined that at least three separate computer deletion programs had been used to erase some of the data, law-enforcement sources said.” 

“[An FBI official stated,] ‘We had teams of investigators frothing at the mouth to get at Yousef’s network. And we get handed an empty computer. It’s as if we’d been tracking a serial killer and someone intentionally shredded the investigative file.’”

Sources:
Associated Press, 3/5/2002, “U.S. Authorities Warned of Hijack Attack Plotting in 1995”
BBC, 2/14/2019, 2/14/2019, “Maria Ressa, Head of Philippines News Site Rappler, Freed on Bail”
CNN, 5/18/2002, “Prior Hints of September 11-Type Attacks”
CNN, 6/5/2002, “Insight”
CNN, 7/26/2003, “Philippines: U.S. missed 9/11 clues years ago; Allegation Follows Congressional Report Faulting Spy Agencies”
Guardian, 7/23/2019, “Philippines Libel Trial of Journalist Critical of Rodrigo Duterte Begins”
New York Times, 7/25/2005, “Editors Tackle Taboos With Girlish Glee”
Newsbreak Weekly, 11/15/2004, “First Person: Decoding Bojinka”
Newsday, 4/16/1995, “Terrorism Evidence Destroyed”
Rappler website, 2020, “Newsbreak”
Washington Post, 12/30/2001, “Bust and Boom”
Washington Post, 9/23/2001, “Borderless Network of Terror”

FBI/CIA Officials and Bojinka Federal Prosecutor Deny Awareness of Hijacking Plot
In contrast to all these reports about hijacked commercial airliners, the Washington Post wrote the following in December of 2001:

“…the Bojinka operation called for a second, perhaps even more ambitious phase… [Murad] was to buy, rent, or steal – that part of the plan had not yet been worked out – a small plane, preferably a Cessna, fill it with explosives and crash it into CIA headquarters. There were secondary targets the terrorist cell wanted hit: Congress, the White House, the Pentagon and possibly some skyscrapers.”

The article then quoted two U.S. officials defending the government’s failure to make a connection between Bojinka and 9/11. One unnamed former senior CIA agent stated:

“To be fair, it's a big leap from stealing a Cessna to commandeering a Boeing 767.”

Likewise, FBI spokesman John Collingwood stated:

“The FBI had no warnings about any hijack plots.”

Also, in September of 2001, the Washington Post quoted one of the Bojinka trial’s federal prosecutors, Dietrich Snell as stating:

“… [FBI officials] were missing any link that would have connected the [Bojinka training] flight schools to this [9/11 style] kind of terrorism.”

Finally, New York Daily News likewise quoted Snell as stating:

“I remember him saying he thought about maybe getting a small plane or somehow get access to a small plane and crash it into the CIA… There was never any mention of hijacking.”

Sources:
New York Daily News, 9/25/2001, “ON CLINTON'S WATCH: Feds Nixed Deal for Plane Plot Tipoff”
Washington Post, 9/23/2001, “FBI Knew Terrorists Were Using Flight Schools”
Washington Post, 12/30/2001, “Bust and Boom”

Bojinka Hijack Trainer Confesses to Prosecutor’s Colleague
Snell’s assertion was dubious, according to ABC News producer, five time Emmy Award-winning reporter, and best-selling political author Peter Lance. In August of 2006, Lance wrote a Huffington Post article covering some key points from his newly released book Triple Cross, which documented the unbelievable exploits of Ali Mohamed, the top personal aid and confidante to Osama Bin Laden who was also a CIA asset, an FBI informant, and a U.S. Army Sergeant who trained Green Berets and Delta Force special operations officers.

According to Lance, just days after 9/11, one of Snell’s close colleagues from the SDNY (Southern District of the New York) Federal prosecutor’s office, FBI Counterterrorism specialist Jack Cloonan, visited Mohammed in prison and demanded to know what he knew. Mohamed proceeded to describe the detailed hijack-training he administered to the Bojinka pilots which perfectly matched the actions of the 9/11 hijackers. Lance stated:

“Within days of 9/11 Cloonan rushed backed from Yemen and interviewed Ali, whom the Feds had allowed to slip into witness protection, and demanded to know the details of the plot. At that point Ali wrote it all out – including details of how he’d counseled would-be hijackers on how to smuggle box cutters on board aircraft and where to sit, to effect the airline seizures.”

Sources:
Huffington Post, 8/29/2006, “Triple Cross: Nat Geo Channel’s Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story” by Peter Lance
Peter Lance, 11/2006, “Triple Cross: How Bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI”

Bojinka Trial Omits Second Wave, Lead Philippine Investigator, & KSM
Furthermore, Lance pointed out that, in the nearly 6,000-page transcript of the three-month Bojinka trial there was not a single mention of the second wave of the attack. Likewise, the lead Philippine investigator of the Bojinka case, Colonel Rodolfo Mendoza, whose interrogations of Murad comprised the clearest source of second wave details, was not called to testify or even mentioned during the trail even though his assistant was called to testify. On top of all this, the Justice Department narrowed the scope of the trial to exclude any mention of 9/11 principle architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), and went on to keep his manhunt a secret from international community, as we will discuss in more detail shortly. Lance concluded:

“The FBI seemed to be going out of its way to avoid even a hint of the plot that was ultimately carried out on 9/11.”

For years, Lance wanted to question Snell about these glaring omissions from the Bojinka Trial and about Bojinka’s connections to 9/11. According to Chapter 18 of his 2005 book, Cover Up, he finally got his chance in March of 2004 when he was called to testify before a 9/11 panel, of which Snell was part. Questions he prepared to ask Snell included:

“Why did you limit the Bojinka evidence at the trial?”

“Did you know about [Colonel] Mendoza’s revelations?”

“Why was the evidence that Ramzi Yousef… hatched the 9/11 plot as far back as 1994 in the Philippines, seemingly ignored by the FBI?”

“Why did the Justice Department narrow the scope of the Bojinka trial… so that the name… Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, ‘the mastermind of 9/11,’ wasn’t mentioned in more than three months of testimony?”

“Why did the FBI and Justice Department keep the hunt for Khalid Shaikh [Mohammed]… secret for years?”

However, in response to every question Lance posed, Snell smiled and said either, “That’s classified,” or “I can’t discuss that.” After the 9/11 Commission released it final report, Lance noted that it completely ignored the Murad interrogations and other evidence linking the Bojinka plot to 9/11. He concluded in the Huffington Post:

“Dietrich Snell, a key SDNY prosecutor… covered up crucial evidence of FBI negligence before the 9/11 Commission.”

Sources:
Huffington Post, 8/29/2006, “Triple Cross: Nat Geo Channel’s Whitewash of the Ali Mohamed Story” by Peter Lance
Peter Lance, 2005, “Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror,” Chapter 18 (posted on his website as of 2021)

KSM Travels to U.S. Regularly for 9/11 Preparations Despite Being a CIA/FBI Top Priority
The CIA and FBI managed a stunning series of failures to detect KSM as he frequently visited the United States to make preparations for 9/11. According to the Associated Press, Murad told Mendoza in 1995 that KSM had valid U.S. visa, that he already traveled to the U.S. before, and that he was planning to travel there again in the near future. Furthermore, Peter Lance in Triple Cross cited an FBI memo which stated the Bureau was certainly aware of these statements. Despite this warning, KSM somehow managed to regularly travel to the U.S in the years between Bojinka and 9/11, including the summer of 1998 and May of 2001, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, citing a June of 2001 CIA cable.

For multiple reasons, neither the CIA nor the FBI could have feigned ignorance of the danger KSM posed during this period. First, U.S. intelligence labeled him a “top priority” just before his January 1996 indictment for the 1993 WTC bombing, according the 2002 9/11 Congressional Inquiry. Second, he was further labeled “high-priority target for apprehension and rendition” 1997 in connection with the Bojinka plot, according to the CIA internal post 9/11 accountability report. Third, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment against him in 1998 for Operation Bojinka, distributed wanted posters, and announced a $2 million dollar reward for his capture, according to the Washington Post in January of 1998 and the New York Times in September of 2002. Federal prosecutor Mary Jo White called him a “major player.” One official likewise told the New York Times:

“We have been after him for years, and to say that we weren’t is just wrong. We had identified him as a major al-Qaeda operative before September 11.” 

Despite KSM’s apparent infamy within the intelligence community, Peter Lance pointed out that the FBI inexplicably left him off its Most Wanted Terrorists list and the CIA kept the manhunt for him a secret from the international community. This was in stark contrast to the successful worldwide manhunt for his nephew, Ramzi Yousef.

Shortly before 9/11, a CIA report, later discussed by the 2002 9/11 Congressional Inquiry, called KSM “one of Bin Ladin’s most trusted lieutenants” and warned that “he continued to travel frequently to the United States, including as recently as May 2001.” It further warned that he “was active in recruiting people to travel… to the United States, to carry out unspecified activities on behalf of Bin Ladin,” that he “routinely told others that he could arrange their entry into the United States,” that upon arrival they would “establish contact with colleagues already there,” and that “they would be engaged in planning terrorist-related activities.”

How did the CIA respond this shocking report? According to the Congressional Inquiry, the report “did not cause the Intelligence Community to mobilize…” No reason was given for this inaction. When the Senators and Congressmen sought more information, the CIA stayed just silent:

“The Joint Inquiry requested that CIA… provide information concerning how… CIA field personnel and other agencies reacted to this information. That information has not been received.”

In fact, the CIA and FBI failed to track down even the most basic and easily accessible information about KSM, like his United States collegiate records. The Joint Inquiry stated:

“Though KSM had numerous links to the United States, it appears that information concerning such links was difficult to discover and did not generate an aggressive response. The Intelligence Community knew that KSM had attended college in the United States in the 1980s. Both the CIA and FBI tried to track this down, but they were unsuccessful until the Kuwaitis published information in the media.”

Sources:
Associated Press, 6/25/2002, “Police: Suspected Sept. 11 Mastermind Was Uncle of 1993 World Trade Center Plotter; Lived Lavishly in Philippines”
CIA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), June 2005, “OIG Report on CIA Accountability With Respect to the 9/11 Attacks: Executive Summary”
Los Angeles Times, 12/22/2002, “The Plots and Design of Al-Qaeda’s Engineer”
New York Times, 6/5/2002, “Sept. 11 Suspect May Be Relative of ’93 Plot Leader”
New York Times, 9/22/2002, “CIA’s Inquiry on Qaeda Aide Seen as Flawed”
Peter Lance, 11/2006, “Triple Cross: How Bin Laden’s Master Spy Penetrated the CIA, the Green Berets, and the FBI”
Washington Post, 1/9/1998, “‘Proud’ Terrorist Gets 240 Years in NY Bombing; Solitary Confinement Urged for Mastermind”
9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, “9/11 Commission Final Report” pgs. 276-277, 533
U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, December 2002, “Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,” pgs. 310-315

1999 Report Warns of Bojinka Repeat
In September of 1999, a 178-page interagency report was generated at the behest of the CIA entitled, “The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?” Upon completion, the report was entered into the Library of Congress and publicly available through its website. The New York Times pointed out that the report “was widely shared within the government and has long been available to the public over the Internet.” The executive summary stated:

“Al Qaeda’s expected retaliation… could take several forms of terrorist attack in the nation's capital… Suicide bomber(s)… could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives… into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House. Ramzi Yousef had planned to do this against the CIA headquarters.”

As with Yousef and Murad’s Bojinka court case, this statement only mentioned an non-hijacked aircraft packed with high explosives, not a commercial airliner hijacking. However, the body of the report uses some variation of the word “hijack” in reference to aircraft about 30 times. The New York Times stated:

“Information from Mr. Murad’s confession formed a basis for an analysis… [which] warned that bin Laden terrorists could hijack a jet and fly it into government buildings like the Pentagon… The F.B.I. had been aware for several years that Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network were training pilots in the United States and elsewhere around the world…”

There were earlier reports as well. During the September 18, 2002 Joint Inquiry hearing held by the Senate and Congressional Intelligence Subcommittees, staff director Eleanor Hill delivered a diatribe in which she appeared to link Bojinka to a longstanding awareness by intelligence officials of Al Qaeda’s intention to use airplanes as weapons. She stated:

“For example, the 1995 NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] on Terrorism cited the consideration the Bojinka conspirators gave to attacking CIA headquarters with an aircraft… After September 11th, 2001, the CIA belatedly acknowledged some of the information… had been available regarding the use of airplanes as weapons… the idea of hijacking planes for suicide attacks had long been current in jihadist circles.”

Nevertheless, the Los Angeles Times said out that Bush administration insisted “it had no way of predicting the hijackings.” Likewise, CBS said that “Bush administration officials have repeatedly said no one in government had imagined such an attack.” For example, it quoted National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as saying in May of 2002:

“I don't think anybody could have predicted that… would try to use… a hijacked airplane as a missile.”

Sources:
CBS News, 5/18/2002, “Report Warned Of Suicide Hijackings”
CBS News, 5/17/2018, “‘99 Report Warned Of Suicide Hijacking”
CNN, 5/18/2002, “Prior Hints of September 11-Type Attack”
Library of Congress, September 1999, “The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?”
Los Angeles Times, 5/17/2002, “‘99 Report: Plane Attack Possible”
New York Times, 5/18/2002, “FBI Knew for Years About Terror Pilot Training”
U.S. Congress, 9/18/2002, “Joint House And Senate Select Intelligence Committee Hearing”

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