(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The CIA has released a set of reports from the late 1990s and early 2000s, showing that the agency warned the Clinton and Bush administrations of a possible attack from Al Qaeda.
The reports, released Friday, the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, included warnings that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had plans to attack Americans with airliners.
A September 10, 1998, CIA report specifically warned that “the same group responsible for the bombings in Africa may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city.” The report was presumably referring to Al Qaeda’s August 7, 1998, simultaneous attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in Africa.
BREAKING: Newly declassified CIA documents show that U.S. intelligence agencies knew as early as 1998 that Bin Laden planned to hijack American aircraft.
“Bin Ladin might implement plans to hijack a US aircraft,” a December 4, 1998 CIA memorandum stated. “[T]wo members of the… pic.twitter.com/citBLuwxRV
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 11, 2026
Another CIA report warned that Al Qaeda was planning to hijack airplanes.
“Bin Ladin might implement plans to hijack a US aircraft,” a December 4, 1998, CIA memorandum stated. “Some members of the Bin Ladin network have received hijack training,” the memo continued, “but no group directly tied to Bin Ladin’s al-Qa’ida has ever carried out an aircraft hijacking.”
Another CIA report from July 21, 1999, warned that bin Laden’s group “made a dry run of a bombing of the FBI headquarters and indicated the operation would take place ‘soon.’”
While the CIA’s reports in the late 90s would turn out to be prescient, the agency also made serious blunders around that time.
Indeed, in December 1999 the CIA had two of the eventual hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, under surveillance in Malaysia. The agency reportedly claims that it then lost track of the two men, who turned up in San Diego in the spring of 2000. But when the CIA learned of this, it did not report the matter to the FBI.
As the Florida Bulldog noted on Friday, “The CIA’s failure to notify the FBI of Hazmi and Mihdhar’s movements was not, evidence suggests, a mere snafu.
“The Chief of the Agency’s Bin Laden Station, his deputy, and the female desk officer tasked with tracking the hijackers, intentionally blocked a cable reporting the matter to FBI Headquarters. When pressed, the case agent had been firm, ‘It’s not an FBI matter,’ she told an FBI agent assigned to the unit, Mark Rossini, ‘When we want the FBI to know, we’ll let them know. And you’re not going to say anything,’” the Bulldog reported.
According to Office of Military Commissions investigator Don Canestraro, at least two FBI agents told him that the CIA was stonewalling the bureau because it was attempting to recruit al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar as agents to infiltrate Al Qaeda.
The CIA would continue to warn about potential Al Qaeda attacks through the early months of the Bush administration in 2001, but those warnings were for naught.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
