‘Bin Laden determined to attack in the US’: declassified CIA documents reveal warnings before 9/11

Recently declassified CIA documents suggest that they had repeatedly warned of possible attacks on American soil, including the possibility of an explosives-laden plane landing in an American city, years before the attack took place. September 11 attacks.The CIA on Friday released 71 intelligence reports prepared for the President’s Daily Brief in the years before and immediately following the 9/11 attacks, offering a detailed chronology of what U.S. intelligence knew about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda as their threat evolved.The collection, published as the United States marked 25 years since the attacks, contains assessments dating from 1998 to September 12, 2001. While many passages remain redacted, the documents show that warnings about attacks within the United States, airliner hijackings, bin Laden’s interest in unconventional weapons and the capabilities of his network appeared repeatedly in intelligence reports.

Multiple warnings

On September 10, 1998, a CIA assessment said bin Laden’s “preferred option” was to attack the United States on its own soil in Washington. He also said that the same group responsible for the bombings of US embassies in Africa “could fly a plane loaded with explosives into a US city.”The assessment cautioned, however, that the intelligence did not provide conclusive information about bin Laden’s intentions for future attacks.The warning was not isolated.A July 1998 intelligence report said bin Laden was considering attacks in the United States and noted that some of his followers had indicated a desire to bring the conflict to American soil.In December of that year, another CIA assessment said bin Laden and his allies were preparing attacks in the United States, including a possible hijacking of airplanes. He noted that members of the network had received training in hijackings, although no group directly linked to Al Qaeda had previously carried out an airplane hijacking.Reports also traced bin Laden’s ambitions beyond conventional attacks. A February 1998 assessment said he and other Islamic extremists had agreed to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear substances on open markets, while noting that his financial network could assist in such efforts.At the same time, the CIA was monitoring the relationship between bin Laden and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers. A 1998 assessment said Taliban leader Mullah Omar defended bin Laden’s continued presence in Afghanistan despite pressure to control him, while the Taliban’s dependence on narcotics revenues and financial support from bin Laden complicated efforts to isolate him.A July 2001 report said a bin Laden operation expected to be imminent had been postponed, but preparations for other attacks could still be underway. On August 28, a CIA assessment described al Qaeda’s operations as flexible and difficult to detect, noting that cells could choose their own timing and objectives and that the organization’s compartmentalized structure could limit what its leaders communicated.The President’s Daily Brief of August 6, 2001, titled “Bin Laden Is Determined to Strike in the United States,” was also among the documents released. The report had previously been declassified in 2004 following a request from the 9/11 Commission.But the documents also illustrate the difficulty of turning individual warnings into an accurate picture of the coming attack.The CIA was tracking multiple possible targets, attack plans, and pieces of intelligence at the same time. In the months leading up to 9/11, reports covered threats in several countries and regions, while separate assessments tracked Bin Laden’s network, the Taliban, possible attacks on the United States and the group’s operational capabilities.

Post-attack report

The first report after the attack, prepared at 4 a.m. on September 12, 2001, offered an early assessment of what happened.He said mounting evidence indicated that Sunni extremists in Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf had recently become aware that attacks led by bin Laden were imminent. He also reported that Bin Laden had told Mullah Omar that he had operations underway that would cause great damage to the United States. One source said the attacks were the result of two years of planning and suggested the Capitol and White House could also have been targets.The statement also includes reports covering the Taliban response, the international military reaction, the closure of civil aviation, and the impact of the attacks on financial markets in the first hours after the attacks.Together, the documents provide a chronological record of a threat that was repeatedly visible to US intelligence but appeared in fragments: a possible attack on US soil, hijacking of aircraft, unconventional weapons, overseas operations and a highly adaptable terrorist network.The 9/11 Commission later concluded that failure to prevent the attacks involved failures of imagination, policy, capabilities, and management, the most important being a lack of imagination.