Al Qaeda planned for several terrorist attacks at the end of the millennium. One such plan “was to hijack an Air India flight from Katmandu, Nepal, on December 24, 1999. Though successful, it was not considered part of the millennium attacks by most American terrorism experts at the time. Only the government of India saw […]
Category: quotes
12/24/1999
“On Christmas Eve 1999, five terrorists hijacked Air India flight 814 in Katmandu, Nepal. The terrorists were Pakistanis from the group Harakat ul Mujahedin (HuM), long supported by bin Laden… The plane refueled in Amritsar, India, then in Lahore, Pakistan, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates before finally settling in at Kandahar [Afghanistan] on […]
12/24/1999
An Air India plane, “with more than 150 passengers and crew on board, was hijacked after departing Nepal on December 24 [1999]; it touched down in India, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates before arriving in Kandahar [Afghanistan] on Christmas Day. The hijackers demanded freedom for three Kashmiri separatists in Indian jails, among them Maulana […]
12/17/1999
From “The Report of the Iraq Inquiry – Executive Summary” ordered by the UK House of Commons to be printed on July 6, 2016: “29. After prolonged discussion about the way ahead, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1284 in December 1999, although China, France and Russia abstained. 30. The resolution established: • a new inspectorate, […]
12/17/1999
UN Security Council resolution 1284, adopted on December 17, 1999, “lifted many of the remaining constraints from the Iraqi economy so there would be no reason for Iraqis to suffer malnutrition or a shortage of medicine–a move that was part of an attempt by the United States to give ground on the sanctions side in […]
12/15/1999
“Counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke strongly championed a plan to raise the reward for information leading to the arrest of bin Laden from $2.5 million to $5 million. At the time, it was the highest monetary amount allowed by federal law for a wanted man. President [Bill] Clinton agreed to Clarke’s plan. By December 1999, bin […]
12/15/1999
CIA Director George Tenet “bragged that the CIA had prevented at least five terrorist outrages between December 1999 and January 2000. But the reality is that both the FBI and the CIA had very little to do with stopping the so-called Millennium attacks. …The credit instead goes to an alert agent of the U.S. Customs […]
12/15/1999
“Iraq claimed repeatedly that it had got rid of all its WMD in 1991. The UN review that established the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) in December 1999, following the withdrawal of the previous inspectors in 1998, recognised that this might be true but needed to be verified.” [The 15th of the […]
12/15/1999
“By December 1999, [Northern Alliance leader, Ahmed Shah] Massoud’s quixotic quest to retake Afghanistan from the Taliban had become a fantasy. And far away from his archenemy bin Laden, he could also provide little useful intelligence. While one part of the CIA was bankrolling Massoud’s group, another part, the CIA’s Counter-Narcotics Center, was warning that […]
12/15/1999
In December 1999, “Operation Able Danger commences. It’s a secret data mining operation ordered by Joint Chiefs chairman Hugh Shelton and General Pete Schoomaker, the head of the army’s Special Operations Command (SOCOM). The Army’s Land Information Warfare Facility (LIWA) searches the Internet for open-source intelligence on al Qaeda. The liaison to the DIA is […]