In early May [2001], a walk-in to the FBI claimed there was a plan to launch attacks on London, Boston, and New York…” [The 5th of the month used for date sorting purposes only.] – 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, Pages 255-256 […]
5/3/2001
A SEIB (Senior Executive Intelligence Brief) headline on May 3, 2001, read: “Bin Laden Public Profile May Presage Attack.” – Philip Shenon, The Commission, Page 152 […]
5/2/2001
On May 2, 2001, Harkat ul-Ansar, an Islamic militant group with ties to Osama bin Laden, “threatened to attack New York, Washington and the White House if the US did not change its attitude towards the Kashmir and Chechnya issues.” – Rohan Gunaratna, Inside al Qaeda, Page 209 […]
5/1/2001
When speaking to the students and faculty of National Defense University, President George W. Bush brought up previous issues with Iraq: “When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, the world joined forces to turn him back. But the international community would have faced a very different situation had Hussein been able to blackmail with nuclear weapons.” – […]
5/1/2001
On May 1, 2001, future 9/11 hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi “reported an attempted street robbery to Fairfax, Virginia, police. He declined to press charges, and since his name was not yet on the Watch List, which would have alerted Customs and INS [Immigration and Naturalization Services] agents to his entry, he escaped scrutiny.” – Peter Lance, […]
5/1/2001
“The FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] conducted 27 special security briefings for specific air carriers between May 1, 2001 and September 11, 2001. Two of these briefings discussed the hijacking threat overseas. None discussed the possibility of suicide hijackings or the use of aircraft as weapons. No new security measures were instituted.” – 9/11 Commission, The […]
4/30/2001
“Iraq’s last conspiracy against the United States was the failed attempt to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush in Kuwait in [April] 1993, a fact that was noted in the State Department’s annual report ‘Patterns of Global Terrorism‘ in 2000 [which was released on April 30, 2001].” – Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next […]
4/30/2001
At a Counterterrorism Security Group meeting on April 30, 2001, Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage said “the top U.S. priority in Southeast Asia would be the complete destruction of al Qaeda. …The goal of eliminating al Qaeda, he said, was more important than stopping the spread of nuclear weapons in Asia, preventing another Indian-Pakistani war, […]
4/30/2001
“In April [30, 2001], the National Security Council deputies’ committee, made up of the No. 2’s in each major department and agency, recommended that President Bush adopt a policy that would include a serious effort to arm the Northern Alliance, the loose confederation of various warlords and tribes in Afghanistan that opposed the Taliban regime […]
4/30/2001
“According to the 2000 edition of the State Department’s annual ‘Patterns of Global Terrorism’ report, issued in April [30] 2001, Iraq has ties to various terrorist groups and does terrible things to dissidents, but, ‘The regime has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President [George H.W.] Bush in […]