CIA drops dozens of declassified documents on bin Laden and al-Qaeda
A briefer wrote to then-President Clinton that bin Laden’s ‘preferred option is to strike the US on its own soil in Washington’, and that al-Qaeda ‘may fly an explosive-packed airplane into a US city’.
Published On 12 Sep 2026
Several dozen presidential briefing documents declassified on the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks detail intelligence government officials had gathered about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda leading up to the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people and upended the United States’ national security.
The documents illustrate security analysts’ tracking of bin Laden’s movements and support system, as
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