CIA releases its largest set of presidential briefings on bin Laden
Several dozen daily briefs from 1998 to 12 September 2001 were declassified on the 25th anniversary of the attacks. A September 1998 brief warned al-Qaeda "may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city".
Several dozen presidential briefing documents declassified on the 25th anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks set out the intelligence United States officials had gathered on Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda in the years before the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe called the release "an act of exceptional transparency" and said it was the agency's single largest release of declassified presidential daily briefs — the highly classified assessments prepared by the intelligence community for the government's most senior leaders.
The span of the documents
The files range from a February 1998 document prepared for then-President Bill Clinton, titled "Terrorists Seeking WMD Capability", which mentioned bin Laden and other Islamic extremists, through to a 12 September 2001 report in which a source indicated the attacks had been planned for two years and had also targeted the US Capitol.
Between those two points the briefs track bin Laden's movements and support system, concerns about possible threats to US targets, and officials' understanding of his network in the United States and other countries, including how his operations were financed.
The Taliban and their guest
An April 1998 document described the Taliban's unwillingness to hand bin Laden over. He was at the time regarded as their guest in Afghanistan.
The brief noted that their gratitude for his assistance during the Soviet occupation was making them reluctant to alienate him by monitoring or controlling his activities.
The aviation warnings
Five months after that assessment, a briefer wrote that bin Laden's preferred option was "to strike the US on its own soil in Washington", and that al-Qaeda "may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city".
Potential hijackings were discussed again in December 1998. A briefer described how conspirators "have evaded security checks during a recent trial run at an unidentified New York airport", and noted that "some members of the Bin Ladin network have received hijack training".
Those passages are the ones that will draw most attention, and they need reading precisely. They describe a capability and an intention in general terms — an aircraft used as a weapon, hijack training, airport security probed — rather than a plan, a date or a target list.
The radiological material
Other documents detail bin Laden's pursuit of materials for making dirty bombs, conventional weapons infused with radioactive material.
By June 1999, according to intelligence officials, his operatives had conducted experiments with explosives intended to increase their energy output.
What the release does not contain
Many of the documents were redacted to conceal sources' names and other identifying information.
They did not appear to break new ground on the planning of the attacks, or on US officials' understanding of how they unfolded.
What the release adds is the primary material in its original form — the briefs as they were written and as they reached the president's desk, rather than as summarised in later inquiries.
Why presidential daily briefs matter
The CIA describes the presidential daily brief as a highly classified assessment prepared by the intelligence community for the government's most senior leaders. Ratcliffe's claim rests on the volume released rather than on the content of any one document.
The anniversary
The release was timed to the 25th anniversary of the attacks. Four former US presidents marked the day in New York City, and President Donald Trump paid tribute to the victims at a Pentagon ceremony.
Al Jazeera carried the report with The Associated Press.
