Declassified CIA Papers Show India Was in Bin Laden’s Target List Before 9/11
What Happened
Newly declassified CIA documents show that Osama bin Laden considered attacks on several countries, including India, years before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. A presidential intelligence brief dated August 28, 1998, titled “Bin Ladin Terrorist Network Still a Threat”, listed India alongside Pakistan, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Uganda, and possibly Nigeria as potential targets. However, the document does not identify any specific target in India or provide details of an attack plan.
Key Takeaways
The documents highlight how global and ambitious al-Qaeda's operations were long before 9/11. They also show that U.S. intelligence had been tracking warnings about bin Laden's international attack plans years before the attacks that transformed global counterterrorism efforts.