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| Bush: US, allies thwarted terrorist plot to attack Los Angeles |
| 2006-02-09 |
| US President George W. Bush unveiled new details about an alleged September 11th-style Al-Qaeda plot to crash a hijacked airliner into the tallest building in Los Angeles in 2002. Bush credited robust cooperation between the United States and its allies in Southeast Asia for dismantling the operation, and said global pressure had left Osama bin Laden's terrorism network "weakened and fractured" and short of cash. The White House had described the plot -- which targeted the 310-meter (1,017-foot) US Bank Tower, also known as Library Tower -- in October 2005, but Bush disclosed an unprecedented amount of newly declassified information. Bush said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed -- sometimes called the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks -- planned to have terrorists hijack an airplane, use shoe bombs to breach the cockpit doors and fly the jet into the building. Bush said that instead of using Arab hijackers, as in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the plot called for "young men from Southeast Asia whom he believed would not arouse as much suspicion." The operatives met with bin Laden before beginning their preparations for the attack, which started to unravel in early 2002 when "a Southeast Asian nation" caught a key Al-Qaeda operative, said Bush. The president did not name the operative or the country. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's key co-conspirator was Hambali, a leader of the Al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), said Bush. The plotters were captured in 2003 in Pakistan and Thailand, respectively. White House counterterrorism adviser Frances Townsend said that all four members of the cell have been caught, but declined to name the two South Asian countries and two Southeast Asian countries that helped foil the plot. She told reporters on a conference call that the four traveled to Afghanistan, where they swore an oath of loyalty to bin Laden, but declined to spell out how far along the plot had gone before being disrupted. Bush said that "subsequent debriefings and other intelligence operations made clear the intended target and how Al-Qaeda hoped to execute it" and led the United States and its partners to catch the conspirators. White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied any linkage between the new details and Bush's aggressive campaign to defend his secret domestic spying program, which some lawmakers have called illegal. But McClellan said the administration had worked to declassify the new material "probably at least three weeks" -- right as the controversy over the warrantless surveillance mushroomed. The president said the plot and the way it was thwarted highlighted the nature of the global war on terrorism and especially the importance of robust international cooperation. "From the vantage point of a terrorist sitting in a cave, the future seems increasingly bleak," Bush said. "Across the world, our coalition is pursuing the enemy with relentless determination. And because of these efforts, the terrorists are weakened and fractured. "Yet they're still lethal," he said. The official investigation into the 2001 attacks also alluded to the skyscraper, saying that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had originally hoped to fly jets into "the tallest buildings in California and the state of Washington." |
| Posted by:ed |
| #6 Have the newsies bothered to mention the name "Richard Reid" in relation to this yet? |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2006-02-09 23:27 |
| #5 Explains why they still want you to take off your shoes I know with some people that would be considered a WMD release. PEEEEWUUU! |
| Posted by: mmurray821 2006-02-09 22:41 |
| #4 Explains why they still want you to take off your shoes |
| Posted by: steve 2006-02-09 22:11 |
| #3 Knew it - the Terrorists are "still lethal" because the brave macho "samurai/warriors of the desert sun", like good Commies andor Mafiacrats, aka Rampaging Barbarians, Warlords, and Bandit-Slaver Hordes gone legal, HIDE AND DISGUISE THEMSELVES + INTENTIONS AMONGST THE INNNOCENT, UNSUSPECTING MASSES. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2006-02-09 22:06 |
| #2 Fox had a later report that yes, they (LA officials) were told yesterday (new Donk Mayor in office) that W was gonna talk about this |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-02-09 20:02 |
| #1 I just got in from eating. The restaurant had a TV showing Fox News with the sound turned off, but according to the bottom scroll LA officials were complaining that they had been kept in the dark about the whole operation. |
| Posted by: Phil 2006-02-09 20:00 |