Al-Qaida timeline: Plots and attacks

--Dec. 8, 1994 - Jan. 5, 1995

Ramzi Yousef rents an apartment in the Dona Josefa apartment complex on Quirino Boulevard, in Manila, Philippines, believing that Pope John Paul II will take that route on his way to a huge outdoor mass planned for Jan. 15.  The apartment is only 500 feet from the Manila home of the Vatican ambassador to the Philippines where the Pope will stay during his 5-day visit to the country.  In addition, he rents a beach house to train his compatriots for the attack and purchases two Bibles, a crucifix, a large poster of the Pope, several priests’ garments — accurate down to the tunic buttons and confessional manuals.  The plan, investigators said, was to place a bomb under a manhole cover along Quirino Boulevard.  The attack is thwarted when bomb-making materials catch fire in the sink of the apartment kitchen.  As it turns out, the pope travels to the Mass by helicopter.

-- Dec. 10, 1994

As part of the planning for the Day of Hate [see below] Yousef plants a crude bomb on board a Philippines Airlines plane from Cebu City, the Philippines, to Tokyo.  When the bomb detonates, it kills one passenger, a Japanese businessman, and forces the plane, a 747, to land in Okinawa.  Yousef calibrates the damage and increases the size of the bomb so it can take down an entire jumbo jet.

-- Jan. 21-22, 1995

In what would have been an attack with a higher death toll than the Sept. 11 attacks, bombs placed on board 11 jumbo jets are to be detonated by timing devices as the planes fly over the Pacific, killing an estimated 4,000 people.   Most of the jets are to be American carriers and most of the dead would have been Americans.  The bombs would have been timed to go off over a number of hours to heighten the terror.  The plan, called the Day of Hate, was conceived by Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing and his uncle, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Only a fire in Yousef’s Manila apartment on Jan. 6 thwarts it. Mohammed later modifies the plan and takes it to Osama bin Laden. That modified plan becomes the blueprint for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

--June 26, 1995

Less than an hour after Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak arrives in Addis Ababa to attend the Organization of African Unity summit, several members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, a group working with al-Qaida, attack his motorcade. Ethiopian forces kill five of the attackers and capture three others.  Ethiopia and Egypt charge the government of Sudan, where bin Laden is living, with complicity in the attack and harboring suspects. Privately, Egyptian officials tell U.S. intelligence they believe Bin Laden is behind the attack. Later, Egyptian officials learn that the terrorists had conducted surveillance of the last trip Mubarak had made to Ethiopia, just as they had with President Clinton.

-- Nov. 13, 1995

A truck bomb explodes outside the Saudi National Guard Communications Center in central Riyadh, killing five American servicemen and two Indian police.  Four Saudi men, all self-described disciples of bin Laden, are quickly executed before the FBI can determine their ties to al-Qaida.

-- June 25, 1996

In an attack whose authorship is still debated by intelligence and law enforcement officials, a truck bomb is detonated at the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American servicemen and wounding 400.  Although an indictment in early 2001 pins blame on Shiite Muslims backed by Iran, many U.S. officials still believe bin Laden is responsible.  Bin Laden himself states in a 1997 interview, “Only Americans were killed in the explosions. No Saudi suffered any injury. When I got the news about these blasts, I was very happy.”

--Aug. 8, 1998

Al-Qaida sends suicide bombers into the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Truck bombs kill more than 240 people, including 12 Americans at the Nairobi embassy. The attack results in the quick arrest of several of the bombers, but not the mastermind, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed. Also known as “Harun,” Mohammed is involved in later al-Qaida attacks.

--Jan. 1-3, 2000

U.S. and Jordanian authorities thwart attacks planned to coincide with the Millennium celebrations. In mid-December, Jordanian authorities arrest more than 20 al-Qaida operatives who are planning to bomb three locations where American tourists gather: Mt. Nebo, where Moses first saw the Promised Land; the Ramada Hotel in Amman, a stopover for tour groups; and the spot on the Jordan River where tradition holds John the Baptist baptized Christ.  Later in the month, U.S. authorities seize Ahmed Ressam at a border crossing in Port Angeles, WA.  He is carrying bomb-making equipment and later discusses his plan to blow up Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve.

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Plots and attacks

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