CIA Warned of Explosive Plane Attacks Years Before 9/11
· World · BBC News, NDTV
Declassified CIA documents reveal that intelligence officers discussed the possibility of al-Qaeda flying explosive aircraft into US cities three years before the September 11 attacks. A briefing from September 1998 identified Washington as a prime target and noted Osama Laden was actively considering domestic strikes. Despite the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, intelligence reports indicated the network remained intact following US retaliation in Afghanistan and Sudan. Only one of the 71 released presidential briefs was authored after the 2001 attacks, arriving within 20 hours of the event. The documents suggest the plot was known within extremist circles at the time.
Why it matters
The reveals highlight a significant gap between intelligence warnings and the operational response that prevented the scale of the 2001 attacks.
Read the original report — BBC News
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