Recent from talks
September 11 intelligence before the attacks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
September 11 intelligence before the attacks
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States, by the al-Qaeda terrorist group, a number of investigations were conducted to determine what intelligence may have existed before the attacks and whether this information was ignored by authorities.
In December 1998, the CIA's Counterterrorist Center reported to President Bill Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the U.S. that might include hijacking aircraft.
Since 1999, information about the hijackers and the preparations for the eventual attack already held by the NSA and the CIA wasn't passed to the FBI until August 2001, primarily due to communications lapses between the agencies and the erroneous belief that said attacks wouldn't happen on US soil, but overseas.
Another warning came from Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, in April 2001 in a speech before the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, in which he asked for humanitarian aid for the people of Afghanistan. Massoud told the parliament that his intelligence agents had gained limited knowledge about a large-scale terrorist attack on U.S. soil being imminent. Massoud was assassinated by al-Qaeda two days before the 9/11 attacks on September 9, 2001.
On 9 September 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Bush and expressed his concerns over Massoud's assassination, warning him that "something larger might be afoot".
In the book MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, Gordon Corera says that Britain's spy chiefs had known a terrorist attack was coming. Later, Richard Dearlove said that "the fact that a large-scale terrorist event occurred was not a surprise," and that "the fear was that it would be an attack against American interests probably not in the mainland". Eliza Manningham-Buller recalled that "we had prior intelligence that summer of Al-Qaeda planning a major attack" but that "we didn't know, nor did the Americans, where it was going to take place."
Nebulous reports had coagulated and then dissipated over the summer; in June 2001, British and American intelligence held one of their joint summits, according to Richard Dearlove "the primary topic of discussion was a major terrorist event," and that a routine meeting "turned into something not routine...there was an increase in chatter [intercepted communications], an increase in indicators." That month, the British passed on details that a senior Al Qaeda figure was planning car-bomb attacks against US targets in Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks, but the attack did not happen. A British report from 6 July 2001 read: "the most likely location for such an attack on western interests by UBL (Usama Bin Laden) and those that share his agenda is the Gulf States or the wider middle east." A JIC report that month said that attacks were in their final stage of preparation.
On 23 August 2001, the Mossad gave the CIA a list of 19 suspects living in the US who were believed to be mounting an imminent attack on the United States. Only four of the names are known, all belonging to eventual hijackers in the attacks — Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdhar, and Nawaf al-Hazmi — and it is not known if the list had 19 names by coincidence or if it had all the hijackers who would partake in the attacks.
Hub AI
September 11 intelligence before the attacks AI simulator
(@September 11 intelligence before the attacks_simulator)
September 11 intelligence before the attacks
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States, by the al-Qaeda terrorist group, a number of investigations were conducted to determine what intelligence may have existed before the attacks and whether this information was ignored by authorities.
In December 1998, the CIA's Counterterrorist Center reported to President Bill Clinton that al-Qaeda was preparing for attacks in the U.S. that might include hijacking aircraft.
Since 1999, information about the hijackers and the preparations for the eventual attack already held by the NSA and the CIA wasn't passed to the FBI until August 2001, primarily due to communications lapses between the agencies and the erroneous belief that said attacks wouldn't happen on US soil, but overseas.
Another warning came from Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, in April 2001 in a speech before the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, in which he asked for humanitarian aid for the people of Afghanistan. Massoud told the parliament that his intelligence agents had gained limited knowledge about a large-scale terrorist attack on U.S. soil being imminent. Massoud was assassinated by al-Qaeda two days before the 9/11 attacks on September 9, 2001.
On 9 September 2001, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Bush and expressed his concerns over Massoud's assassination, warning him that "something larger might be afoot".
In the book MI6: Life and Death in the British Secret Service, Gordon Corera says that Britain's spy chiefs had known a terrorist attack was coming. Later, Richard Dearlove said that "the fact that a large-scale terrorist event occurred was not a surprise," and that "the fear was that it would be an attack against American interests probably not in the mainland". Eliza Manningham-Buller recalled that "we had prior intelligence that summer of Al-Qaeda planning a major attack" but that "we didn't know, nor did the Americans, where it was going to take place."
Nebulous reports had coagulated and then dissipated over the summer; in June 2001, British and American intelligence held one of their joint summits, according to Richard Dearlove "the primary topic of discussion was a major terrorist event," and that a routine meeting "turned into something not routine...there was an increase in chatter [intercepted communications], an increase in indicators." That month, the British passed on details that a senior Al Qaeda figure was planning car-bomb attacks against US targets in Saudi Arabia in the coming weeks, but the attack did not happen. A British report from 6 July 2001 read: "the most likely location for such an attack on western interests by UBL (Usama Bin Laden) and those that share his agenda is the Gulf States or the wider middle east." A JIC report that month said that attacks were in their final stage of preparation.
On 23 August 2001, the Mossad gave the CIA a list of 19 suspects living in the US who were believed to be mounting an imminent attack on the United States. Only four of the names are known, all belonging to eventual hijackers in the attacks — Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Khalid al-Mihdhar, and Nawaf al-Hazmi — and it is not known if the list had 19 names by coincidence or if it had all the hijackers who would partake in the attacks.