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Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were given multiple warnings that 9/11 organizer Osama bin Laden and his terror network were planning to hijack large commercial jets in an effort to attack the United States, according to a batch of files released by the Trump administration on Friday.
The reports, contained in previously classified documents from presidential daily briefs (PDBs) and high-level CIA intelligence memorandums, noted that operatives had already evaded security checks during a trial run at an unidentified New York airport three years before members of al-Qaeda took down the World Trade Center.
The plotters aimed to leverage hijacked flights to demand the release of imprisoned extremists, including Shaykh ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman and Ramzi Yousef.
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“Some members of the bin Ladin network have received hijack training, according to various sources, but no group directly tied to bin Ladin’s al-Qa’ida organization has ever carried out an aircraft hijacking,” a Dec. 4, 1998 presidential daily briefing states. “Bin Ladin could be weighing other types of operations against US aircraft.”
Months before the December 1998 briefing, a Sept. 10, 1998, PDB memorandum noted that bin Laden’s preferred option was to strike on U.S. soil in Washington, D.C. That report warned that the terror network responsible for the East Africa embassy bombings could possibly fly a plane packed with explosives into an American city.
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Throughout 1998, U.S. intelligence agencies tracked bin Laden’s movements and support system, while identifying associates and sympathizers operating across several states, including New York, California, Texas, Michigan, and Florida, the documents state.
The warnings spanned two presidential administrations. An Aug. 6, 2001, PDB delivered to Bush informed him that the FBI uncovered patterns of suspicious activity inside the U.S. consistent with preparations for hijackings or other attacks, as well as recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
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“Al-Qa’ida members — including some who are US citizens — have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks,” that document states.
“After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington,” it said.
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Weeks before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a daily brief for Bush said that the FBI was conducting around 70 field investigations throughout the U.S. that it believed were related to bin Laden.
The documents were released as part of a broader push by the Trump administration to shed light on what intelligence agencies knew before the attacks.
“Today I authorized the release of 71 Presidential Daily Briefs to honor the lives of those killed on 9/11, along with CIA officers who subsequently gave their lives to the fight,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement posted on X.
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In his second administration, Trump has also released classified files on the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.
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