CLINTON RECEIVED RED FLAG ON HIJACKINGS IN '98

New York Post ^ | 7/23/04 | Andy Soltis

[kattracks]

July 23, 2004 -- The 9/11 commission released a previously classified briefing to President Bill Clinton — made in 1998 — about a threat from Osama bin Laden to hijack aircraft in the United States. The bombshell Presidential Daily Brief of Dec. 4, 1998, included information obtained by the CIA from a friendly government.

It was headed: "Bin Ladin [sic] Preparing to Hijack U.S. Aircraft and Other Attacks."

It cited information indicating bin Laden and his allies were preparing an aircraft hijacking and other attacks in the United States to free three jailed Arabs, including the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Ramzi Yousef, and "blind sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman.

One intelligence source was quoted as saying that, as of late October 1998, Egypt-based al Qaeda ally Gama al-Islamayiyya "had completed planning an operation in the U.S." but it "was on hold."