The CIA had issued several warnings to the White House, including one that specifically suggested al-Qaida could potentially fly an aircraft loaded with explosives into a US city, before the 9/11 attacks. On Friday, the agency released 71 presidential daily briefs covering the period from early 1998 through September 12, 2001, the day after the attacks.
The newly disclosed records shed light on the intelligence gathered by US officials about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida before the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people and transformed American national security policy. They show how intelligence analysts monitored bin Laden’s movements, network and sources of funding while warning about potential threats to US interests and targets. The documents include briefings prepared for top government officials between 1998 and September 12, 2001, with references to possible hijackings, attacks on US soil, bin Laden’s interest in chemical and radiological weapons, and the Taliban’s refusal to surrender the al-Qaida leader.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe called the disclosure “an act of exceptional transparency”, describing it as the agency’s biggest-ever release of declassified presidential daily briefs. These highly classified reports were prepared by the US intelligence community for the country’s senior leaders.
Of the 71 documents made public, 69 had never previously been available to the public. Many sections remain heavily redacted to protect intelligence sources and other identifying information. The briefs were prepared during the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W Bush.
The records begin with a February 1998 briefing prepared for then-President Bill Clinton titled “Terrorists seeking WMD capability”, which referred to bin Laden and other Islamic extremists. They extend through a September 12, 2001, report citing a source who claimed that the attacks had been planned for two years and had also included the US Capitol as a target.
A document from April 1998 said the Taliban were unwilling to hand over bin Laden, who was considered their “guest” in Afghanistan. The briefing said the Taliban were grateful for his assistance during the Soviet occupation and were therefore “reluctant to alienate him by monitoring or controlling his activities”.
Another briefing from July 1998 said intelligence officials believed bin Laden could be placing “a high priority on conducting attacks in the United States”. It also highlighted his interest in carrying out attacks using chemical and biological agents.
Two months later, another briefing stated that bin Laden’s preferred plan was to strike the US itself, particularly Washington, and warned that al-Qaida “may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city”.
In December 1998, a briefing stated that suspected conspirators had bypassed security checks during a “recent trial run at an unidentified New York airport”. It also said that some members of bin Laden’s network “have received hijack training”.
Other documents indicated that bin Laden was attempting to acquire materials for “dirty bombs”. By June 1999, intelligence officials said his operatives had conducted experiments with explosives in an effort to “increase their energy output”.
Around 1999, US intelligence officials believed bin Laden was misleading the Taliban about his alleged reluctance to launch an unprovoked attack against the United States. Presidential daily briefs prepared for George W Bush in early 2001 also highlighted bin Laden’s “experimentation by crude means to make and deploy biological agents”.
A briefing issued a month before the attacks said bin Laden remained committed “to conduct terrorist attacks in the US”. It pointed to the 1998 al-Qaida attacks on US embassies as evidence that he planned operations years in advance and was not discouraged by setbacks.
In August 2001, intelligence officials also highlighted “suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York”. The briefing added that the FBI was carrying out around 70 full-field investigations across the US that it considered related to bin Laden.
PAST DOCUMENTS ON WARNINGS BEFORE 9/11
In September 2002, a year after the attacks, a US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence inquiry revealed that the intelligence community had received information from several sources in June 1998 indicating that bin Laden was considering attacks inside the US, including in Washington and New York. The information was passed on to US government officials.
Two months later, intelligence agencies received information that a group of unidentified Arabs was planning to fly an aircraft carrying explosives from a foreign country into the World Trade Center. The information was shared with the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
However, the FAA considered the scenario “highly unlikely”, citing the condition of the foreign country’s aviation system at the time.
The FAA also believed that an international flight would be detected before reaching its intended target inside the US. Meanwhile, the FBI’s New York office did not take action on the information and instead placed the communication in its repository files.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER 9/11
Following the attacks, a bipartisan commission identified serious shortcomings in information-sharing between agencies including the CIA and FBI. Its recommendations resulted in major structural changes, including the creation of a centralised director of national intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Centre, which coordinates analysis of domestic and international terrorism information across government agencies.
The 9/11 Commission’s 2004 report said US intelligence agencies had information suggesting that al-Qaida was considering using an aircraft as part of an attack. However, it remained unclear whether that warning had reached then-President Bill Clinton.
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida had already been prominent concerns for the US intelligence community since 1998.
