This year marks 25 years since al-Qaeda terror chief Osama bin Laden’s attack on the United States. The terror strike carried out by al-Qaeda on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, is well known to have caused a sensation worldwide. However, newly declassified documents have revealed that India was also among the countries al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden intended to attack even before that strike. The documents make clear that Bin Laden had marked India as a target for an attack as well. Marking 25 years since the al-Qaeda attack, the United States’ intelligence agency, the CIA, has declassified 70 Presidential Daily Intelligence Briefings related to Bin Laden. Running over 100 pages, these documents contain striking details of the secret intelligence and warnings gathered by the CIA in the period before the 9/11 attacks.
Notably, to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the CIA declassified more than 100 pages of secret documents drawn from around 70 intelligence briefings prepared for the president. These reports contain information provided by US intelligence agencies to the presidents during the terms of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Among them, an intelligence report dated August 28, 1998, titled “Bin Laden Terrorist Network Still a Threat,” contains several key details. The report stated that Bin Laden was preparing the ground to carry out attacks in several countries including India, Pakistan, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Uganda, and Nigeria. However, the documents do not specify where in India the attack was planned, nor do they mention the specific location, date, or a clear plan.
The CIA’s report assessed that even though the US carried out missile strikes on al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan following the attacks on America, Bin Laden and other terrorist leaders managed to escape. The documents revealed that their communication systems were not damaged in the slightest by these strikes, and that training camps in Afghanistan were restarted. The CIA warned in its report that Bin Laden had the capability to carry out attacks with the help of his affiliated terrorist organisations and network of individuals spread across nearly 60 countries worldwide.
Furthermore, the documents demonstrate that the CIA repeatedly warned US presidents between 1998 and 2001 that a terror attack on America was likely. It is also notable that the warnings included the possibility that aircraft within the country itself could be used not merely as means of transport but as suicide weapons to attack cities. It has since emerged that the massive damage that followed occurred precisely because the presidents of the time ignored these warnings.
Just days after these warnings were issued, on September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger aircraft. Two of the planes struck the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, bringing them down, while a third aircraft struck the Pentagon building, and a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. The attack is known to have claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 innocent people.