Newly declassified CIA documents show that US intelligence officials believed Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda were considering attacks on the United Kingdom several years before the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The documents were released by the CIA to mark the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and include intelligence assessments dating from the late 1990s. Among them is an August 28, 1998, briefing titled “Bin Ladin Terrorist Network Still a Threat”, which indicated that bin Laden was considering further attacks against both the United States and the UK.
The memo was compiled following US cruise missile strikes against Al-Qaeda-linked targets in Sudan and Afghanistan. “Hours before the US missile strikes, Bin Laden was looking at options for further attacks against the US as well as the UK,” the document said. “Bin Ladin did not indicate precise targets or timing.”
The assessment also identified a US embassy in an unnamed country as a possible target and said a man had been authorised by bin Laden to explore potential attacks inside the United States. Another intelligence memo produced later in 1998, titled “Significant Near-Term Threat of Bin Ladin Attacks”, said US officials had indications that bin Laden wanted to strike the United States and allied countries on their own territory.
“We have strong indications that he would like to attack the US and allies such as the UK and Israel on their own soil,” the memo said. “If Bin Ladin judges these venues are too well defended, however, he will target US and allied interests in other areas of the world accessible to his network.”
A separate document from August 1999 discussed the impact that arrests of Al-Qaeda operatives had reportedly had on the organisation. “His organisation’s capabilities have suffered from the arrest of key operatives,” the memo said. “Bin Ladin in interviews last year expressed anger over the arrests of his senior procurement officer and the chief of his organisation in the UK.”
The newly released material also illustrates the incomplete nature of the intelligence available to US agencies before 9/11, with the documents referring to assessments made “despite sparse, vague, and imperfect information”. Some of the intelligence discussed possible plans by bin Laden’s network to hijack aircraft. One assessment raised the possibility that a group “may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city”.
The September 11 attacks subsequently involved Al-Qaeda operatives hijacking four commercial aircraft. Two were flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York, another struck the Pentagon, while a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania. The latest release comprises 71 partially redacted briefing notes, two of which had previously been made public. The material represents intelligence assessments produced before and immediately after the September 11 attacks.
The CIA said the release was “aimed to give Americans a glimpse into our most sensitive intelligence from the years before and day after one of our nation’s darkest moments”. According to the agency, the documents “trace the story of CIA analysts’ evolving understanding” of Al-Qaeda during the period leading up to and immediately following 9/11.