{"id":844909,"date":"2026-09-12T04:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T04:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/844909\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T04:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T04:50:13","slug":"cia-releases-dozens-of-declassified-documents-on-bin-laden-prior-to-9-11-september-11-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/844909\/","title":{"rendered":"CIA releases dozens of declassified documents on bin Laden prior to 9\/11 | September 11 News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A briefer wrote to then-President Clinton that bin Laden\u2019s \u2018preferred option is to strike the US on its own soil in Washington\u2019, and that al-Qaeda \u2018may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Published On 12 Sep 202612 Sep 2026<\/p>\n

Several dozen presidential briefing documents declassified on the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks detail intelligence government officials had gathered about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda leading up to the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people and upended the United States\u2019 national security.<\/p>\n

The documents illustrate security analysts\u2019 tracking of bin Laden\u2019s movements and support system, as well as concerns about possible threats to US targets. They also detail officials\u2019 understanding of his network in the US and other countries, including how his operations were financed.<\/p>\n

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Proclaiming it \u201can act of exceptional transparency\u201d, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the documents were the agency\u2019s single largest release of declassified presidential daily briefs \u2014 the highly classified briefings prepared by the nation\u2019s intelligence community for the government\u2019s most senior leaders.<\/p>\n

The documents range from a February 1998 file, prepared for then-President Bill Clinton, titled \u201cTerrorists Seeking WMD Capability\u201d and mentioning bin Laden and other Islamic extremists, to a September 12, 2001, report in which a source indicated the attacks had been planned for two years and had also targeted the US Capitol.<\/p>\n

An April 1998 document described the Taliban\u2019s unwillingness to hand over bin Laden, at the time seen as their \u201cguest\u201d in Afghanistan, noting their \u201cgratitude for his assistance during the Soviet occupation\u201d was making them \u201creluctant to alienate him by monitoring or controlling his activities\u201d.<\/p>\n

Five months later, a briefer wrote that bin Laden\u2019s \u201cpreferred option is to strike the US on its own soil in Washington\u201d and that al-Qaeda \u201cmay fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city\u201d.<\/p>\n

Potential hijackings were also discussed in December 1998, when a briefer described how conspirators \u201chave evaded security checks during a recent trial run at an unidentified New York airport\u201d, and \u201csome members of the Bin Ladin network have received hijack training\u201d.<\/p>\n

Other documents detail bin Laden\u2019s pursuit of materials for making \u201cdirty bombs\u201d, conventional weapons infused with radioactive material. By June 1999, according to intelligence officials, his operatives had conducted such experiments with explosives to \u201cincrease their energy output\u201d.<\/p>\n

Many of the documents were redacted to conceal sources\u2019 names and other identifying information. They didn\u2019t appear to break any new ground on the planning of the attacks or on US officials\u2019 understanding of how they had unfolded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A briefer wrote to then-President Clinton that bin Laden\u2019s \u2018preferred option is to strike the US on its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[26643,23,1127,3,50094,21,19,22,20,25,1209,24],"class_list":["post-844909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-al-qaeda","tag-america","tag-conflict","tag-news","tag-september-11","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-us-canada","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}