Timeline of 9/11

December 26, 1979: Soviet forces invade Afghanistan. They will withdraw in 1989 after a brutal 10-year war. It has been commonly believed that the invasion was unprovoked. But in a 1998 interview, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's National Security Adviser, reveals that the CIA began destabilizing the pro-Soviet Afghan government six months earlier, in a deliberate attempt to get the Soviets to invade and have their own Vietnam-type costly war: “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?” [ Le Nouvel Observateur, 1/98 , Mirror, 1/29/02 ] The US and Saudi Arabia give a huge amount of money (estimates range up to $40 billion total for the war) to support the mujaheddin guerrilla fighters opposing the Russians. Most of the money is managed by the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency. [ Nation, 2/15/99 ]

Early 1980: Osama bin Laden begins providing financial, organizational, and engineering aid for the mujaheddin in Afghanistan, with the advice and support of the Saudi royal family. [ New Yorker, 11/5/01 ] Some believe he was hand-picked for the job by Prince Turki al-Faisal, head of Saudi Arabia's secret service. [ Sunday Times, 8/25/02 ] Bin Laden has been considered a Turki protégé by some biographers. [ New Yorker, 11/5/01 ] The Pakistani ISI wanted a Saudi prince as a public demonstration of the commitment of the Saudi royal family and as a way to ensure royal funds for the anti-Soviet forces. The agency failed to get royalty, but bin Laden, with his family's influential ties, was good enough for the ISI. [ Miami Herald, 9/24/01 ]

Salem bin Laden with baby in 1975. [Corbis]

October 1980: Salem bin Laden, Osama's oldest brother, is later described by a French secret intelligence report as one of the two closest friends of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd. As such, he often performs important missions for Saudi Arabia. The French report speculates that he is involved in secret Paris meetings between US and Iranian emissaries this month. Frontline, which published the French report, notes that such meetings have never been confirmed. Rumors of these meetings have been called the “October Surprise” and some have speculated Bush Sr. negotiated in these meetings a delay to the release of the US hostages in Iran, thus helping Ronald Reagan and Bush win the 1980 Presidential election. All of this is highly speculative, but if the French report is correct, it points to a long-standing connection of highly illegal behavior between the Bush and bin Laden families (see also Mid-1980s and 1988). [ PBS Frontline, 2001 (B) ]

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar still controls part of Afghanistan. [BBC]

1982-1991: Afghan opium production skyrockets from 250 tons in 1982 to 2,000 tons in 1991, coinciding with CIA support and funding of the mujaheddin. Alfred McCoy, a professor of Southeast Asian history at the University of Wisconsin, says US and Pakistani intelligence officials sanctioned the rebels' drug trafficking because of their fierce opposition to the Soviets: “If their local allies were involved in narcotics trafficking, it didn't trouble CIA. They were willing to keep working with people who were heavily involved in narcotics.” For instance, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a rebel leader who received about half of all the CIA's covert weapons, was known to be a major heroin trafficker. The director of the CIA in Afghanistan claims later to be oblivious about the drug trade: “We found out about it later on.” [ Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 9/30/01 , Atlantic Monthly, 5/96 ]

1984: Bin Laden moves to Peshawar, a Pakistani town bordering Afghanistan, and is running a front organization for the mujaheddin known as Maktab al-Khidamar (MAK), funneling money, arms and fighters from the outside world into the Afghan war. [ New Yorker, 1/24/00 ] “MAK was nurtured by Pakistan's state security services, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, the CIA's primary conduit for conducting the covert war against Moscow's occupation.” [ MSNBC, 8/24/98 ] He becomes closely tied to the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and greatly strengthens Hekmatyar's opium smuggling operations. [ Le Monde, 9/14/01 ] Hekmatyar had ties with bin Laden, the CIA and drug running, and has also been called “an ISI stooge and creation” by the Wall Street Journal. [ Asia Times, 11/15/01 ]

1984-1994: The US, through USAID and the University of Nebraska, spends millions of dollars developing and printing textbooks for Afghan schoolchildren. The textbooks are filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation. For instance, children are taught to count with illustrations showing tanks, missiles and land mines. Lacking any alternative, millions of these textbooks are used long after 1994; the Taliban are still using them in 2001. In 2002, the US started producing less violent versions of the same books, which Bush says will have “respect for human dignity, instead of indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry.” Bush fails to mention who created those earlier books. [ Washington Post, 3/23/02 , CBC, 5/6/02 ]

Mid-1980s: Salem bin Laden, Osama's oldest brother, is allegedly involved in the Iran-Contra affair. Quoting a French intelligence report posted by Frontline (see October 1980), The New Yorker reports, “During the nineteen-eighties, when the Reagan Administration secretly arranged for an estimated thirty-four million dollars to be funneled through Saudi Arabia to the Contras, in Nicaragua, Salem bin Laden aided in this cause, according to French intelligence.” [ New Yorker, 11/5/01 , PBS Frontline, 2001 (B) ]

Mid-1980s (B): The ISI starts a special cell of agents who use profits from heroin production for covert actions “at the insistence of the CIA.” “This cell promotes the cultivation of opium and the extraction of heroin in Pakistani territory as well as in the Afghan territory under mujaheddin control for being smuggled into the Soviet controlled areas, in order to turn the Soviet troops heroin addicts. After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, the ISI's heroin cell started using its network of refineries and smugglers for smuggling heroin to the Western countries and using the money as a supplement to its legitimate economy. But for these heroin dollars, Pakistan's legitimate economy must have collapsed many years ago.” [ Financial Times (Asian edition), 8/10/01 ] The ISI grows so powerful on this money, that Time magazine later states, “Even by the shadowy standards of spy agencies, the ISI is notorious. It is commonly branded ‘a state within the state,’ or Pakistan's ‘invisible government.’” [ ]

Mid 1980s (C): Controversial author Gerald Posner says ex-CIA officials claim that General Akhtar Abdul Rahman, ISI head from 1980 to 1987, regularly meets bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan. The ISI and bin Laden form a partnership that forces Afghan tribal warlords to pay a “tax” on the opium trade. By 1985, bin Laden and the ISI are splitting annual profits of up to $100 million a year. [Why America Slept, by Gerald Posner, 9/03, p. 29]

Osama bin Laden in 1989. [Sydney Morning Herald]

March 1985: The US decides to escalate the war in Afghanistan. The CIA, British MI6 and the ISI agree to launch guerrilla attacks from Afghanistan into then Soviet-controlled Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, attacking military installations, factories and storage depots within Soviet territory until the end of the war. The CIA also begins supporting the ISI in recruiting radical Muslims from around the world to come to Pakistan and fight with the Afghan mujaheddin. The CIA gives subversive literature and Korans to the ISI, who carry them into the Soviet Union. Eventually, around 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries will fight with the Afghan mujaheddin. Tens of thousands more will study in the hundreds of new madrassas funded by the ISI and CIA in Pakistan. Their main logistical base is in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. [ Washington Post, 7/19/92 , Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/23/01 , Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 9/23/01 , The Hindu, 9/27/01 , Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid, 3/01] In the late 1980s, Pakistan's President Benazir Bhutto, feeling the mujaheddin network has grown too strong, tells President George Bush Sr., “You are creating a Frankenstein.” But the warning goes unheeded. [ Newsweek, 9/24/01 ] By 1993, the President of Pakistan tells Egyptian President Hasni Mubarak that Peshawar is under de facto control of the mujaheddin, and unsuccessfully asks for military help in reasserting Pakistani control over the city. Thousands of mujaheddin fighters return to their home countries after the war is over, and engage in countless acts of terrorism. One Western diplomat notes these thousands would never have been trained or united without US help, and says “The consequences for all of us are astronomical.” [ Atlantic Monthly, 5/96 ]

1986: The CIA, ISI and bin Laden work together to build the Khost tunnel complex in Afghanistan. This will be a major target of bombing and fighting in the US defeat of the Taliban in 2001. [ Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/23/01 , Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 9/23/01 , The Hindu, 9/27/01 , Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Ahmed Rashid, 3/01] It is reported before 9/11 that “bin Laden worked closely with Saudi, Pakistani and US intelligence services to recruit mujaheddin from many Muslim countries,” but this hasn't been reported much since. [ UPI, 6/14/01 ] A CIA spokesman will later claim, “For the record, you should know that the CIA never employed, paid, or maintained any relationship whatsoever with bin Laden.” [ Ananova, 10/31/01 ]

September 1987-March 1989: Michael Springmann, the head US consular official in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, later claims that he is “repeatedly told to issue visas to unqualified applicants.” He turns them down, but is repeatedly overruled by superiors. Springmann loudly complains about the practice to numerous government offices, but no action is taken. He eventually is fired and the files he has kept on these applicants are destroyed. Springmann speculates that the issuing of visas to radical Islamic fighters continued until 9/11. He says he later learns that recruits from many countries fighting for bin Laden against Russia in Afghanistan were funneled through the Jeddah office to get visas to come to the US. They would then train for the Afghan war in the US. He says the Jeddah consulate was run by the CIA and staffed almost entirely by intelligence agents. Springmann suggests that this visa system may have continued until present day, and that the 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers getting their visas through Jeddah (see May 21, 2002 (C)) could have been a part of it (see also October 21, 2002 and October 23, 2002). [ BBC, 11/6/01 , Associated Press, 7/17/02 (B) , Fox News, 7/18/02 ]

1988: Prior to this year, George Bush Jr. is a failed oil man. Three times friends and investors have bailed him out to keep him from going bankrupt. But in this year, the same year his father becomes President, some Saudis buy a portion of his small company, Harken, which has never worked outside of Texas. Later in the year, Harken wins a contract in the Persian Gulf and starts doing well financially. These transactions seem so suspicious that the Wall Street Journal in 1991 states it “raises the question of … an effort to cozy up to a presidential son.” Two major investors in Bush's company during this time are Salem bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's oldest brother, and Khaled bin Mahfouz. [ Salon, 11/19/01 , Intelligence Newsletter, 3/2/00 ] Khaled bin Mahfouz is a Saudi banker with a 20 percent stake in BCCI, a bank that will go bankrupt a few years later in the biggest corruption scandal in banking history (see July 5, 1991). In 1999 bin Mahfouz will be placed under house arrest in Saudi Arabia for contributions he gave to welfare organizations closely linked to bin Laden (see April 1999). Bin Mahfouz's sister is married to Osama bin Laden (see also August 13, 1996, Early December 2001 (B), December 4, 2001 (B), and November 26, 2002). [ Washington Post, 2/17/02 ] In late 2002, Ron Motley, the lead lawyer in a 9/11 Saudi suit (see August 15, 2002), threatens that Bush, now President, “may find himself being deposed” in court for these financial ties to bin Mahfouz. [ Minneapolis Star Tribune, 8/16/02 ]

Al-Qaeda soldiers.

August 11, 1988: Bin Laden forms al-Qaeda this year (notes are later found showing a meeting led by bin Laden on this day discussing “the establishment of a new military group”). [ Associated Press, 2/19/03 (B) ]

August 12, 1988: The first media report appears about Echelon, a high-tech global electronic surveillance network between the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Governments deny that Echelon exists, but whistleblowers expose it. They claim it's being abused in many ways, including to spy on politicians domestically. Echelon is capable of “near total interception of international commercial and satellite communications,” including taps into transoceanic cables, but it is “impossible for analysts to listen to all but a small fraction of the billions of telephone calls, and other signals which might contain ‘significant’ information.” [ New Statesman, 8/12/88 ]

Raed Hijazi. [AP]

1989-May 2000: Nabil al-Marabh moves to Boston in 1989 and apparently lives there as a taxi driver and al-Qaeda sleeper agent for the next ten years. [ New York Times, 9/18/01 , Boston Herald, 9/19/01 ] In 1992 he learns to use weapons in an Afghan al-Qaeda training camp with a terrorist named Raed Hijazi. [ Chicago Sun-Times, 9/5/02 ] He and Hijazi live together and drive taxis at the same company in Boston for several years. [ Los Angeles Times, 9/21/01 ] A mutual friend at the same taxi company is later killed participating in a 1999 al-Qaeda terrorist attack. [ Boston Herald, 9/19/01 ] Hijazi helps plan the USS Cole bombing (see October 12, 2000), and then participates in a failed attempt to bomb a hotel in Jordan (see November 30, 1999). In May 1999, the FBI approaches al-Marabh looking for Hijazi, but al-Marabh lies and says he doesn't know Hijazi. [ Washington Post, 9/4/02 ] Hijazi is arrested in Syria in October 2000 and imprisoned in Jordan for his bomb attempt there. [ Toronto Sun, 10/16/01 ] He begins to cooperate with investigators and identifies al-Marabh as a US al-Qaeda operative. [ New York Times, 9/18/01 ] Terrorist Ahmed Ressam (see December 14, 1999) gives evidence helping to prove that al-Marabh sent money to Hijazi for the Jordan bombing. [ Toronto Sun, 11/16/01 , ABC 7, 1/31/02 ] By February 1999, al-Marabh is driving taxis in Tampa, Florida while maintaining a cover of living in Boston. [ Toronto Star, 10/26/01 , ABC 7, 1/31/02 ] [ New York Times, 9/18/01 ] He apparently lives in Tampa at least part time until February 200; investigators later wonder if he is an advance man for the Florida-based hijackers. [ New York Times, 9/18/01 , ABC 7, 1/31/02 ] Al-Marabh is living in Detroit by May 2000, though he maintains a Boston address until September 2000 (see May 30, 2000-September 11, 2001). [ Boston Herald, 9/19/01 ] These connections with Hijazi lead to a US Customs investigation into al-Marabh in early 2001 that connects him with two of the 9/11 hijackers (see Spring 2001 (B)). Yet, despite all of these al-Qaeda connections and more, the US later decides there is no evidence that al-Marabh is a terrorist (see September 19, 2001-September 3, 2002).

January 20, 1989: George Bush Sr. is inaugurated as US president, replacing Ronald Reagan. He remains president until 1993 (see January 20, 1993). Many of the key members in his government later have important positions again when his son George Bush Jr. becomes president in 2001 (see January 21, 2001). For instance, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell later becomes Secretary of State, and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney later becomes Vice President.

February 15, 1989: 2004-04-08 Soviet forces withdraw from Afghanistan. Afghan Communists retain control of Kabul, the capital, until April 1992. [ Washington Post, 7/19/92 ] Later in the year, bin Laden returns to Saudi Arabia a triumphant hero Crown Prince Abdullah personally greets him. [Why America Slept, by Gerald Posner, 9/03, pp. 40-41] He returns to working with the family construction business. [ New Yorker, 1/24/00 ]

November 9, 1989: The Berlin Wall begins to fall in East Germany, signifying the end of the Soviet Union as a superpower. Just six days later, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell presents a new strategy document to President Bush Sr., proposing that the US shift from countering Soviet attempts at world dominance to ensuring US world dominance. Bush Sr. accepts this plan in a public speech, with slight modifications, on August 2, 1990, the same day Iraq begins invading Kuwait. In early 1992, Powell, counter to his usual public dove persona, tells congresspeople that the US requires “sufficient power” to “deter any challenger from ever dreaming of challenging us on the world stage.” He says, “I want to be the bully on the block.” Powell's early ideas of global hegemony will be formalized by others in a 1992 policy document (see March 8, 1992) and finally realized as policy when Bush Jr. becomes president in 2001. [ Harper's, 10/02 ]

A young Hani Hanjour. [Arizona Star]

1990: Hani Hanjour enters the US, the first of the hijackers to do so. He takes an English course in Tuscon, Arizona. [ Time, 9/24/01 (B) , Cox News, 10/15/01 , New York Times, 6/19/02 ] However, the FBI claims Hanjour first arrived on October 3, 1991. [ Congressional Intelligence Committee, 9/26/02 ]

Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman. [AP]

July 1990: Despite being on a terrorist watch list, radical Muslim leader Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman enters the US on a “much-disputed” tourist visa issued by an undercover CIA agent. [ Village Voice, 3/30/93 , Atlantic Monthly, 5/96 ] Abdul-Rahman was heavily involved with the CIA and ISI efforts to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan, and became famous traveling all over the world for five years recruiting new mujaheddin. But he never hid his prime goals, which were to overthrow the governments of the US and Egypt. [ Atlantic Monthly, 5/96 ] He is “infamous throughout the Arab world for his alleged role in the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat.” Abdul-Rahman immediately begins setting up a terrorist network in the US. [ Village Voice, 3/30/93 ] He is known to have befriended bin Laden while in Afghanistan, and bin Laden secretly pays Abdul-Rahman's US living expenses. [ Atlantic Monthly, 5/96 , ABC News, 8/16/02 ] Abdul-Rahman's ties to the assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane in later 1990 is ignored (see November 5, 1990). As one FBI agent says in 1993, he is “hands-off…. It was no accident that the sheikh got a visa and that he's still in the country. He's here under the banner of national security, the State Department, the NSA, and the CIA.” A very high-ranking Egyptian official says Abdul-Rahman continues to assist the CIA in recruiting new mujaheddin after moving to the US. This official says, “We begged America not to coddle the sheikh.” Egyptian intelligence warns the US that Abdul-Rahman is planning new terrorist attacks, and on November 12, 1992, terrorists connected to him machine-gun a busload of Western tourists in Egypt. But still he lives freely in New York City. [ Village Voice, 3/30/93 ] He is finally arrested in 1993 and convicted for assisting in the 1993 WTC bombing (see February 26, 1993). [ Atlantic Monthly, 5/96 ]

August 1990-March 1991: Iraq invades and conquers Kuwait in August 1990. Bin Laden, newly returned to Saudi Arabia (see February 15, 1989), offers the Saudi government the use of his thousands of mujaheddin fighters to defend the country in case Iraq attacks it. The Saudi government turns him down, and allows 300,000 US soldiers on Saudi soil instead. Bin Laden is incensed, and immediately goes from ally to enemy of the Saudis. After a slow buildup, the US invades Iraq in March 1991 and reestablishes Kuwait. [Why America Slept, by Gerald Posner, 9/03, pp. 40-41] Bin Laden soon leaves the country and starts his career as terrorist (see March 1991 and April 1991).

Rabbi Meir Kahane (left) and his assassin El Sayyid Nosair (right).

November 5, 1990: An Egyptian American named El Sayyid Nosair assassinates controversial right-wing Zionist leader Rabbi Meir Kahane. Kahane's organization, the Jewish Defense League, was linked to dozens of bombings and was ranked by the FBI as the most lethal domestic terrorist group in the US at the time. Nosair is captured after a police shoot-out. An FBI informant says he saw Nosair meeting with Muslim leader Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman a few days before the attack (see July 1990), and possessions indicating a wider plot with additional targets are found. [ Village Voice, 3/30/93 ] Incredibly, files found in his possession which give details of a terrorist cell, mention al-Qaeda, and discuss the destruction of tall US buildings, are not translated until years later. [ ABC News, 8/16/02 ] Instead, within 12 hours of the assassination, New York police declare the assassination was the work of a “lone gunman” and they stick with that story. In his trial, prosecutors choose not to introduce his incriminating possessions as evidence, nor is his confession even mentioned, and an apparent “open-and-shut case” ends with his acquittal. However, he is sentenced to 22 years on other lesser charges. [ Village Voice, 3/30/93 ] Bin Laden contributes to Nosair's defense fund. Many of those involved in Kahane's assassination later plan the 1993 WTC bombing (see February 26, 1993). As one FBI agent puts it, “The fact is that in 1990, myself and my detectives, we had in our office in handcuffs, the people who blew up the World Trade Center in '93. We were told to release them.” [ ABC News, 8/16/02 ]

1991: Future National Security Advisor Rice joins Chevron's board of directors, and works with Chevron until being picked as Bush's National Security Advisor in 2001. Chevron even names an oil tanker after her. Rice is hired for her expertise in Central Asia, and much of her job is spent arranging oil deals in the Central Asian region. Chevron also has massive investments there, which grow through the 1990s. [ Salon, 11/19/01 ]

1991-1995: According to a Dutch government report, the US military secretly breaks a United Nations arms embargo during the 1991-1995 Yugoslavia war by channeling arms through radical Muslim groups in an “Iran-Contra-style operation.” US, Turkish and Iranian intelligence groups work with radical Muslims in what the Dutch report calls the “Croatian pipeline.” Arms bought by Iran and Turkey and financed by Saudi Arabia are flown into Croatia. Mujaheddin fighters are also flown in. The US is “very closely involved” in the flagrant breach of the embargo, an embargo the US is in charge of monitoring. [ Guardian, 4/22/02 ]

1991-1997: The Soviet Union collapses in 1991, creating many new nations in Central Asia. Major US oil companies, including ExxonMobil, Texaco, Unocal, BP Amoco, Shell and Enron, directly invest billions in these Central Asian nations, bribing heads of state to secure equity rights in the huge oil reserves in these regions. The oil companies commit to future direct investments in Kazakhstan of $35 billion. These companies face the problem however of having to pay exorbitant prices to Russia to use Russian pipelines to get the oil out. These oil fields have an estimated $6 trillion potential value. US companies own approximately 75 of the rights. [ New Yorker, 7/9/01 , Asia Times, 1/26/02 ] FTW

March 1991: 2004-04-08 As the Gulf War against Iraq ends (see August 1990-March 1991), the US does not withdraw all of its soldiers from Saudi Arabia, but stations some 15,000-20,000 there permanently. [ Nation, 2/15/99 ] President Bush Sr. falsely claims that all US troops have withdrawn. [ Guardian, 12/21/01 ] Their presence isn't admitted until 1995, and there has never been an official explanation as to why they are there. The Nation postulates that they are there to prevent a coup. Saudi Arabia has an incredible array of high-tech weaponry, but may lack the expertise to use it and local soldiers may have conflicting loyalties. In 1998, bin Laden will release a statement: “For more than seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.” [ Nation, 2/15/99 ]

April 1991: 2004-04-08 Bin Laden, recently returned to Saudi Arabia (February 15, 1989), is placed under house arrest for his opposition to the continued placing of US soldiers on Saudi soil (see August 1990-March 1991 and March 1991). [ or PBS Frontline, 9/01 ] Controversial author Gerald Posner claims that a still classified US intelligence report describes a secret deal between bin Laden and Saudi intelligence minister Prince Turki al-Faisal at this time. Although bin Laden has suddenly turned in an enemy of the Saudi state, he is nonetheless too popular for his role with the mujaheddin in Afghanistan to be easily imprisoned or killed. Bin Laden is allowed to leave Saudi Arabia with his money and supporters, but the Saudi government will publicly disown him. Privately, the Saudis will continue to fund his supporters with the understanding that they will never be used against Saudi Arabia. The wrath of the fundamentalist movement is thus directed away from the vulnerable Saudis. [Why America Slept, by Gerald Posner, 9/03, pp. 40-42] Posner says the Saudis “effectively had [bin Laden] on their payroll since the start of the decade.” [ Time, 8/31/03 ] This deal is reaffirmed in 1996 and 1998 (see 1996 (C), May 1996, June 1996 (B), and July 1998). Bin Laden first returns to Afghanistan. But after staying there a few months, he moves again, settling into Sudan with hundreds of ex-Mujaheddin supporters. [ or PBS Frontline, 9/01 ]

July 5, 1991: The Bank of England shuts down the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the largest Muslim bank in the world. Based in Pakistan, this bank financed numerous Muslim terrorist organizations and laundered money generated by illicit drug trafficking and other illegal activities, including arms trafficking. Bin Laden and many other terrorists had accounts there. [ Detroit News, 9/30/01 ] One money-laundering expert claims, “BCCI did dirty work for every major terrorist service in the world.” [ Los Angeles Times, 1/20/02 ] American and British governments knew about all this yet kept the bank open for years. The ISI had major connections to the bank. But, as later State Department reports indicate, Pakistan remains a major drug trafficking and money-laundering center despite the bank's closing. [ Detroit News, 9/30/01 ] The Washington Post claims, “The CIA used BCCI to funnel millions of dollars to the fighters battling the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.” A French intelligence report later suggests the BCCI network has been largely rebuilt by bin Laden (see October 2001). [ Washington Post, 2/17/02 ] The ruling family of Abu Dhabi, the dominant emirate in the United Arab Emirates, owned 77 percent of the bank. [ Los Angeles Times, 1/20/02 ] A network of drug, weapons and money laundering later develops between al-Qaeda, the Taliban, United Arab Emirates and Pakistan (see Mid-1996-October 2001).

1992-1996: Bin Laden is based in Sudan. With a personal fortune of around $250 million (estimates range from $50 to $800 million [ Miami Herald, 9/24/01 ]), he begins plotting terrorist attacks against the US. The first attack kills two tourists in Yemen at the end of 1992 (see December 1992). [ New Yorker, 1/24/00 ] The CIA learns of his involvement in that attack in 1993, also learns that year he is channeling money to Egyptian extremists. US intelligence also learns that by January 1994 he is financing at least three terrorist training camps in North Sudan. [ New York Times 8/14/96 , PBS Frontline, 9/01 , Congressional Inquiry, 7/24/03 (B) ]

March 8, 1992: The Defense Planning Guidance, “a blueprint for the department's spending priorities in the aftermath of the first Gulf War and the collapse of the Soviet Union,” is leaked to the New York Times. [ New York Times, 3/8/92 , Newsday, 3/16/03 ] The paper causes controversy, because it hadn't yet been “scrubbed” to replace candid language with euphemisms. [ New York Times, 3/10/92 , New York Times, 3/11/92 , Observer, 4/7/02 ] The document argues that the US dominates the world as sole superpower, and to maintain that role it “must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role.” [ New York Times, 3/8/92 , New York Times, 3/8/92 (B) ] As the Observer summarizes it, “America's friends are potential enemies. They must be in a state of dependence and seek solutions to their problems in Washington.” [ Observer, 4/7/02 ] The document is mainly written by Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis Libby, who hold relatively low posts at the time, but under Bush Jr. become Deputy Defense Secretary and Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, respectively. [ Newsday, 3/16/03 ] The document conspicuously avoids mention of collective security arrangements through the United Nations, instead suggesting the US “should expect future coalitions to be ad hoc assemblies, often not lasting beyond the crisis being confronted.” [ New York Times, 3/8/92 ] It also calls for “punishing” or “threatening punishment” against regional aggressors before they act. Interests to be defended pre-emptively include “ access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, [and] threats to US citizens from terrorism.” [ Harper's, 10/02 ] Senator Lincoln Chafee (R), later says, “It is my opinion that [Bush Jr.'s] plan for preemptive strikes was formed back at the end of the first Bush administration with that 1992 report.” [ Newsday, 3/16/03 ] In response to the controversy, in May 1992 the US releases an updated version of the document that stresses the US will work with the United Nations and its allies (see also January 1993). [ Washington Post, 5/24/92 , Harper's, 10/02 ]

June 4, 1992: It is reported that the FBI is investigating the connections between James Bath and George Bush Jr. Bath is Salem bin Laden's official representative in the US. “Documents indicate that the Saudis were using Bath and their huge financial resources to influence US policy,” since Bush Jr.'s father is president. Bush denies any connections to Saudi money. What became of this investigation is unclear. [ Houston Chronicle, 6/4/92 ]

September 1, 1992: Terrorists Ahmad Ajaj and Ramzi Yousef enter the US together. Ajaj is arrested at Kennedy Airport in New York City. Ramzi Yousef is not arrested, and later masterminds the 1993 bombing of the WTC (see February 26, 1993). “The US government was pretty sure Ahmad Ajaj was a terrorist from the moment he stepped foot on US soil,” because his “suitcases were stuffed with fake passports, fake IDs and a cheat sheet on how to lie to US immigration inspectors,” plus “two handwritten notebooks filled with bomb recipes, six bomb-making manuals, four how-to videotapes concerning weaponry and an advanced guide to surveillance training.” However, Ajaj is only charged with passport fraud, and serves a six-month sentence. From prison, Ajaj frequently calls Ramzi Yousef and others in the WTC bombing plot, but no one monitors or translates the calls until long after the bombing. [ Los Angeles Times, 10/14/01 ] An Israeli newsweekly later reports that the Palestinian Ajaj may have been a mole for the Israeli Mossad. The Village Voice has suggested that Ajaj may have had “advance knowledge of the World Trade Center bombing, which he shared with Mossad, and that Mossad, for whatever reason, kept the secret to itself.” Ajaj was not just knowledgeable, but was involved in the planning of the bombing from his prison cell. [ Village Voice, 8/3/93 ] Ajaj is released from prison three days after the WTC bombing, but is later rearrested and sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. [ Los Angeles Times, 10/14/01 ] One of the manuals seized from Ajaj is horribly mistranslated for the trial. For instance, the title page is said to say “The Basic Rule,” published in 1982, when in fact the title says “Al-Qaeda” (which means “the base” in English), published in 1989. Investigators later complain that a proper translation could have shown an early connection between al-Qaeda and the WTC bombing. [ New York Times, 1/14/01 ]

December 1992: 2004-04-08 A bomb explodes in a hotel in Aden, Yemen, killing two tourists. US soldiers had just left the hotel for Somalia. Intelligence agents suspect this may be the first terrorist attack against the US connected to bin Laden. [ Miami Herald, 9/24/01 ] US intelligence concludes in April 1993 that “[Bin Laden's] almost certainly played a role.” [ Congressional Inquiry, 7/24/03 (B) ]

Ali Mohamed.

1993: Canadian police arrest Ali Mohamed, a high ranking al-Qaeda figure. However, they release him when the FBI says he is a US agent. [ Globe and Mail, 11/22/01 ] Mohamed, a former US Army sergeant, then will continue to work for al-Qaeda for a number of years. He trains bin Laden's personal bodyguards and trains a terrorist cell in Kenya that later blows up the US embassy there. Meanwhile, at least between 1993 and 1997 he tells secrets to the FBI about al-Qaeda's operations. He is arrested in late 1998 and subsequently convicted of his role in the 1998 US embassy bombing in Kenya. [ CNN, 10/30/98 , Independent, 11/1/98 ] Says a former Egyptian intelligence officer: “For five years he was moving back and forth between the US and Afghanistan. It's impossible the CIA thought he was going there as a tourist. If the CIA hadn't caught on to him, it should be dissolved and its budget used for something worthwhile.” [ Wall Street Journal, 11/26/01 ]

1993 (B): Bin Laden buys a jet from the US military in Arizona (the Pentagon approved the transaction). This aircraft is later used to transport missiles from Pakistan that kill American special forces in Somalia. He also has some of his followers begin training as pilots in US flight schools. These initial flight trainings come to nothing when details are later revealed in a court case about Operation Bojinka (see January 6, 1995). [ Sunday Herald, 9/16/01 ]

1993 (C): An expert panel commissioned by the Pentagon postulates that an airplane could be used as a missile to bomb national landmarks. But the panel doesn't publish this idea in its report, Terror 2000. [ Washington Post, 10/2/01 ] One of the authors of the report says. “We were told by the Department of Defense not to put it in… and I said, ‘It's unclassified, everything is available.’ And they said, ‘We don't want it released, because you can't handle a crisis before it becomes a crisis. And no one is going to believe you.’” [ ABC News, 2/20/02 ] However, in 1994 one of the panel's experts will write in Futurist magazine: “Targets such as the World Trade Center not only provide the requisite casualties but, because of their symbolic nature, provide more bang for the buck. In order to maximize their odds for success, terrorist groups will likely consider mounting multiple, simultaneous operations with the aim of overtaxing a government's ability to respond, as well as demonstrating their professionalism and reach.” [ Washington Post, 10/2/01 ]

January 1993: In his last days in office as Defense Secretary, Dick Cheney releases a document called Defense Strategy for the 1990s. It reasserts the plans for US global domination outlined in an earlier Pentagon policy paper (see March 8, 1992). [ Harper's, 10/02 ] But because of Clinton's presidential victory, the implementation of these plans will have to wait until Bush Jr. becomes president in 2001 and Cheney becomes vice president. However, Cheney and others will continue to refine this vision of global domination through the Project for the New American Century think tank while they wait to reassume political power (see June 3, 1997 and September 2000).

January 20, 1993: Bill Clinton is inaugurated as president, replacing George Bush Sr. He remains president until 2001 (see January 21, 2001).

Damage underground the WTC in 1993. [AP]

February 26, 1993: An attempt to blow up the WTC fails. Six people are killed in the misfired blast. Analysts later determine that had the terrorists not made a minor error in the placement of the bomb, both towers could have fallen and up to 50,000 people could have been killed. The attempt is organized by Ramzi Yousef, who has close ties to bin Laden. [ Congressional Hearings, 2/24/98 ] The New York Times later reports on Emad Salem, an undercover agent who ends up being the key government witness in the trial against the bomber. Salem testifies that the FBI knew about the attack beforehand and told him they would thwart it by substituting a harmless powder for the explosives. However, this plan was called off by an FBI supervisor, and the bombing was not stopped. [ New York Times, 10/28/93 ] Others suspects are ineptly investigated before the bombing (see July 1990 and November 5, 1990). Several of the bombers were trained by the CIA to fight in the Afghan war, and the CIA later concludes in internal documents that it was “partly culpable” for this bombing attempt. [ Independent, 11/1/98 ] Ahmad Ajaj, an associate of Yousef, may have been a mole for the Israeli Mossad, and the Mossad may have had advanced knowledge of the bombing (see September 1, 1992). US officials later state that the overall mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, is a close relative of Ramzi Yousef, [ Independent, 6/6/02 ] probably his uncle. [ Los Angeles Times, 9/1/02 ] One of the attackers even left a message found by investigators stating, “Next time, it will be very precise.” 9/11 can be seen as a completion of this failed attack. [ Associated Press, 9/30/01 ]

June 1993-October 1994: Saeed Sheikh, a brilliant British student at the London School of Economics, drops out of school and moves to his homeland of Pakistan to become a terrorist. Two months later, he begins training in Afghanistan at camps run by al-Qaeda and the Pakistani army. By mid-1994, he has become a terrorist instructor. In June 1994, he begins kidnapping Western tourists in India. In October 1994, he is captured after kidnapping three Britons and an American, and is put in a maximum-security prison (see November 1994-December 1999). The ISI pays for a lawyer to defend him. [ Los Angeles Times, 2/9/02 , Daily Mail, 7/16/02 , Vanity Fair, 8/02 ] His supervisor for his terror work is an ISI officer named Ijaz Shah (see February 5, 2002). [ Times of India, 3/12/02 , Guardian, 7/16/02 ] Al-Qaeda and the ISI later rescue him from prison (see December 24-31, 1999) and he becomes a central figure in the financing of the 9/11 plot (see Early August 2001 (D)).

June 24, 1993: Eight people are arrested, foiling a plot to bomb several New York landmarks. The targets were the United Nations building, 26 Federal Plaza, and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. The plotters are connected to Ramzi Yousef (see September 1, 1992, February 26, 1993, and January 6, 1995) and Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman (see July 1990). If the bombing planned for later in the year had been successful, thousands would have died. [ Congressional Inquiry, 7/24/03 (B) ]

October 3-4, 1993: Eighteen US soldiers are attacked and killed in Mogadishu, Somalia, in a spontaneous gun battle (later the subject of the movie Black Hawk Down). A 1998 US indictment charges bin Laden and his followers with training the attackers. [ PBS Frontline, 10/3/02 (C) ] The link between bin Laden and the Somali killers of US soldiers appears to be Pakistani terrorist Maulana Masood Azhar. [ Los Angeles Times, 2/25/02 ] Azhar is associated with Pakistan's ISI (see December 24-31, 1999), and the US has not publicly complained that he is a free man in Pakistan (see December 14, 2002).

The Dabhol power plant. [Enron]

November 1993: The Indian government gives approval for Enron's Dabhol power plant, located near Bombay on the west coast of India. Enron has invested $3 billion, the largest single foreign investment in India's history. Enron owns 65 percent of Dabhol. This liquefied natural gas powered plant is supposed to provide one-fifth of India's energy needs by 1997 [ Asia Times, 1/18/01 , Indian Express, 2/27/00 ] It is the largest gas-fired power plant in the world. Earlier in the year, the World Bank concludes that the plant is “not economically viable” and refuses to invest in it. [ New York Times, 3/20/01 ] Enron apparently tries to make the plant financially viable by investing in gas fields in nearby Uzbekistan (see June 24, 1996), but it cannot get that gas to Dabhol without a gas pipeline through Afghanistan (see