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...A Southeast Asian intelligence official said at least three members of a Southeast Asian cell earmarked to carry out the attack on the West Coast were being held in Malaysia under the Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial. "One guy was given money to go for pilot training," said the official, who has proven reliable in the past. He said the would-be pilot, Zaini Zakaria, was arrested in 2002, and the others were probably chosen to play supporting roles in the hijacking. Members of the cell fled to Malaysia from Afghanistan after the United States began bombing al...

How US stopped Hambali Natalie O'Brien and Patrick Walters February 11, 2006 IT should have been no surprise that the Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiah and its operations chief Hambali were named by US President George W. Bush as the figures behind a 2002 plot to fly a plane into California's tallest building. JI and Hambali, mastermind of the Bali bombing, were not only intimately connected with al-Qa'ida's chief strategist Khalid Sheik Mohammed in the plan to destroy the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles, they had been in cahoots for years, planning to blow up US airliners and...

A Malaysian pilot recruited by al-Qaeda to fly a hijacked airliner into the tallest building on the US West Coast pulled out of the plot when he realised it was a suicide mission, security officials in South-East Asia said today. Further details emerged of the plan to target the iconic 73-storey US Bank Building in Los Angeles, revealed by President Bush yesterday in an address to rally support for the War on Terror. Terrorism experts in Malaysia said that Zaini Zakaria, an engineer, was among three men being trained to launch the planned second-wave of Osama bin Laden's assault on...

A Malaysian pilot recruited by al-Qaeda to fly a hijacked airliner into the tallest building on the US West Coast pulled out of the plot when he realised it was a suicide mission, security officials in South-East Asia said today. Further details emerged of the plan to target the iconic 73-storey US Bank Building in Los Angeles, revealed by President Bush yesterday in an address to rally support for the War on Terror. Terrorism experts in Malaysia said that Zaini Zakaria, an engineer, was among three men being trained to launch the planned second-wave of Osama bin Laden's assault on...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Malaysian recruited by al-Qaeda to pilot a plane in a second wave of Sept. 11-style attacks on the United States pulled out after observing the carnage of the 2001 assaults, Southeast Asian officials said Friday. President Bush on Thursday outlined details of an alleged plot to hijack an airliner and fly it into a skyscraper in Los Angeles. He said cooperation between Washington and several Asian countries helped expose it. The plan never appeared close to the stage where it could be put into execution. Scores of arrests in the aftermath of the Sept. 11,...