Report told of al-Qaida hijacking plot in 1998

WASHINGTON – A secret intelligence report prepared for President Clinton in December 1998 reported on a suspected plot by Osama bin Laden to hijack a U.S. airliner in an effort to force the United States to release imprisoned conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center attacks.

The one-page declassified version of the President’s Daily Brief dated Dec. 4, 1998, contains chilling information the CIA had gleaned from several sources indicating that al-Qaida was working with U.S.-based operatives of its deadly ally, the Egyptian group Gama at al-Islamiyya, in the purported hijack plot.

The brief shows that the intelligence community and the White House were aware of al-Qaida’s interest in hijacking U.S. airliners long before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The day the brief was prepared, then-CIA director George Tenet said in a memo to the intelligence community that “we are at war,” and that no resources should be spared to defeat the terrorists.

The 1998 brief is titled: “Bin Laden preparing to hijack U.S. aircraft and other attacks.” It was declassified, with redactions, by the White House on Monday at the request of the Sept. 11 commission. The text of the 1998 PDB was read to a Washington Post reporter by an administration official who had access to the declassified document.

A report by the presidential commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks will include the newly declassified document.