1) Somalia - when the US withdrew (in shame) from Somalia - this was a signal to bin Laden that the US was weak. It also raised bin Laden to hero status in the Islamic terrorists world. He had planned and "roped" in the Americans by tricking them into an ambush.
2) The timid reaction of the Clinton administration to the eruption of the "Iran-Bosnia scandal," when the Clinton White House looked the other way as Iran shipped weapons and fighters to the Muslim forces in Bosnia in violation of UN sanctions.
3) At the time that the terrorist warnings of late 1997 (FBI knew there were terrorist cells in the US - specifically Brooklyn and Jersey City - as early as May 1997) were being issued, Zawahiri, bin Laden, and the highest echelons of the leadership of Islamist international terrorism were preoccupied with on of the most significant yet least understood or known dramas of Islamist terrorism: an apparent secret deal between the Islamist terrorists and the Clinton administration that drove Egypt into de facto cooperation with the Islamist terrorism-sponsoring states against the US. Clinton was willing to tolerate the overthrow of the Mubarak government on a promise by the terrorist to stay out of Bosnia! Mubarak got information on this plan and the US has not been on good terms with Egypt since!
4) The horrendous terrorist strike in Luxor on November 17, 1997, was actually a "test" (where tourists and Westerners were slaughtered) on Clinton's credibility on keeping his deal with the terrorist. "The virtually deafening silence of the Clinton administration had to reassure Zawahiri and bin Laden, and a rejuvenated call to arms followed. On the eve of the strike in East Africa, the Islamists' belief in the validity of their "deal" with Washington would lead to a major, continuing crisis.
5) This literally threw Egypt into alliance with Sudan and other terrorist sponsored nations. This was a dramatic, swift reorientation in the strategic outlook of a major regional power - and it went virtually unnoticed in Washington, now solely preoccupied with the elusive Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
6) "The specter of a wave of Islamist terrorism led by bin Laden, Zawahiri, and their supporters against the United States and its allies, the realignment of forces in the Middle East to the detriment of the US strategic interests, and the growing likelihood of major crisis and war in this region all emerged as the price Washington paid for its effort to prevent the violent collapse of the Dayton Accords in Bosnia-Herzegovina."
7) The improved relations between Egypt and Sudan would serve as a major factor in the decision to launch the attack on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
8) A terrorist who was involved in the planning was having 2nd thoughts. He approached the US Embassy with information about the plans, but was rejected and ignored.
All these stories are in this book (I still haven't finished it), which was written in 1999. Here are some eerie quotes in retrospect after the attack of 9/11
Hussein: "But no matter how high they fly in the air, we will bring them down to earth with Jihad. We will teach them that the Arab and Islamic Nation will no submit to their will."
Regarding antrax: Another by The bulletin urged the al-Azhar ulema to "strongly confront the humiliations that its men and leaders are subjected to in the media organs (US media) like to portray them as buffoons." (Is this one reason the media is being targeted?)
Part of their overall plans is to attack America in "spectacular" terrorist attacks intermingled with low level attacks (anthrax). This is in the book as well, but I can't find the exact reference.
ARC, by the way, is the same outfit that that lawyer Paul Gablia in Virginia was investigating when he ended up mysteriously murdered outside Dulles Airport in 1996.