Reply #5: Found this in my bookmarks

[Katarina]

Very informative article. http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq36.html

<snip>
Western intelligence had been aware of plans for such terrorist attacks on U.S. soil as early as 1995. Both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had detailed information about the possible use of hijack/suicide attacks by terrorists connected to Osama bin Laden. The New York Times reported that:

?In 1994, two jetliners were hijacked by people who wanted to crash them into buildings, one of them by an Islamic militant group. And the 2000 edition of the FAA?s annual report on Criminal Acts Against Aviation, published this year, said that although Osama bin Laden ?is not known to have attacked civil aviation, he has both the motivation and the wherewithal to do so,? adding, ?Bin Laden?s anti-Western and anti-American attitudes make him and his followers a significant threat to civil aviation, particularly to U.S. civil aviation.??<4>

Moreover, the U.S. intelligence community was aware of bin Laden?s specific intentions to use hijacked civilian planes as weapons. In this regard, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that:

?The FBI had advance indications of plans to hijack U.S. airliners and use them as weapons, but neither acted on them nor distributed the intelligence to local police agencies. From the moment of the September 11th attacks, high-ranking federal officials insisted that the terrorists? method of operation surprised them. Many stick to that story. Actually, elements of the hijacking plan were known to the FBI as early as 1995 and, if coupled with current information, might have uncovered the plot.?<5>

Much more at the link.