The Trump administration on Friday made public a newly declassified set of documents shedding light on what officials in the Clinton and Bush White Houses knew about Al Qaeda threats in the years before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The release includes more than 100 pages drawn from the President’s Daily Brief, the highly classified intelligence digest prepared for the commander in chief with updates on global threats, security analysis and national defense concerns. The materials span from February 1998 through September 2001, covering the final years of President Bill Clinton’s administration and the opening months of President George W. Bush’s presidency.
Though large portions remain blacked out, the documents indicate that U.S. intelligence agencies had picked up warnings as early as May 1998 that Osama bin Laden was calling for an attack inside the United States during Clinton’s time in office.
“We have received four reports from highly questionable sources suggesting Usama Bin Ladin is making plans to conduct an attack in the United States,” one July 1998 briefing said.
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At the time, intelligence analysts believed bin Laden may have been considering an attack on a shopping mall in Washington, D.C., or weighing a kidnapping plot, though the intended target’s name is still redacted in the file.
The same assessment underscored how limited the government’s picture remained, stating: “We have little information on Bin Ladin’s operatives in the US.”
The first explicit reference to a possible airline hijacking on U.S. soil appears in a December 1998 briefing. It warned that “Bin Ladin and his allies are preparing for attacks in the US, including an aircraft hijacking to obtain the release” of the imprisoned cleric widely known as “the blind sheik,” along with some of his associates.
That cleric, Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, was a blind Egyptian religious leader serving a life sentence in North Carolina for his role connected to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He died in a U.S. prison in February 2017.
According to the document, Al Qaeda-linked operatives had reportedly slipped past security screening during a test run at an unidentified New York airport. “The same source late last month said that Bin Ladin might implement plans to hijack a US aircraft before the beginning of Ramadan on 20 December and that two members of the operational team had evaded security checks during a recent trial run at an unidentified New York airport.”
The briefing added that “some members of the Bin Ladin network have received hijack training, according to various sources,” while also noting that no group directly connected to bin Laden’s al-Qa’ida organization had previously carried out an aircraft hijacking.
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The files also show that U.S. officials explored fears that bin Laden might have acquired a nuclear weapon, possibly from Russia, before concluding he did not possess one. Even so, intelligence officials remained concerned that the Al Qaeda leader could turn to chemical or biological weapons.
“If Bin Ladin succeeded in buying a chemical or biological weapon, his past behavior and statements indicate he would have no reservations about using it and he would begin searching for a suitable target,” the documents note in February 1999.
Much of the concern is focused on whether bin Laden will obtain a bomb, noting his use of them previously, such as the attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in 1998.
And while they note bin Laden was interested in attacking American interesting, the exact target — either in the US or US interests abroad — was unclear.
In March 2000, there was concern bin Laden would attack a highly-visible target, such as the Statue of Liberty or Eiffel Tower.
During Bush’s presidency, in August 2001— a month before the September 11th attacks — the brief warns that bin Ladin is “Determined To Strike in US.”
“After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington,” the document states.
An FBI investigation “indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”
