New 9/11 Files Reveal ‘Explosive-Packed Airplane’ Warning on US City

The CIA released 71 President's Daily Brief documents on the 25th anniversary of September 11, including a September 1998 warning that bin Laden's ‘preferred option’ was striking Washington and that al-Qaeda ‘may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city.’ Other briefs from 1998 through 2001 tracked hijack training, a security-check trial run at a New York airport, and pursuit of chemical, biological, and dirty-bomb capabilities. An August 2001 report cited roughly 70 active FBI investigations tied to bin Laden and surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe called the release an ‘act of exceptional transparency’ and touted it as the agency's largest declassification of presidential daily briefs. The Associated Press, notably, found the files broke no new ground on the actual planning or execution of the attacks. Nearly 3,000 people died on September 11, 2001, and the documents confirm what was known and unknown beforehand without resolving why warnings didn't translate into prevention.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.