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2000 millennium attack plots

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Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) was a target of the plots.

A series of Islamist terrorist attacks linked to al-Qaeda were planned to occur on or near January 1, 2000, in the context of millennium celebrations, including bombing plots against four tourist sites in Jordan, the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), USS The Sullivans, and the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814.[1]

In Lebanon, dozens were killed in clashes in the Dinnieh district between radical Islamists with connections to the Jordan plots and the Lebanese Army.[2] The plots in Jordan and against LAX were foiled by law enforcement agencies, while the attempted bombing of The Sullivans only failed because the boat filled with explosives sank before detonating.

The revelation of the plot linked to the LAX "Millennium Bomber" Ahmed Ressam led to unprecedented investigations into other potential terrorist cells in the United States, dubbed Operation "Borderbom", and security measures around millennium celebrations. Other al-Qaeda-linked millennium attack plots may have been planned or foiled around the same time.[3]

Millennium attack plots

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Jordan bombing plots

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In Jordan, members of the Islamist terror organization al-Qaeda planned to bomb four sites: a fully booked Radisson hotel in Amman, Jordan; the border between Jordan and Israel; a Christian church on Mount Nebo; and a site on the Jordan River where John the Baptist is said to have baptized Jesus.[4] These locations were chosen to target tourists from the United States and Israel.[3] The most active participant was a Boston taxi driver named Raed Hijazi.[3]

On November 30, 1999, Jordanian intelligence intercepted a call between Saudi citizen Abu Zubaydah, the leader of the plot, and Khadr Abu Hoshar, a Palestinian militant terrorist. In the conversation, Zubaydah stated, "The time for training is over." Sensing that the attack was imminent, Jordanian police arrested Hoshar and fifteen others on December 12, 1999.[5]

Jordanian authorities put twenty-eight suspects on trial. Twenty-two of them were quickly found guilty. Six of them, thought to be linked to Osama bin Laden, including Hijazi, were sentenced to death. Abu Zubaydah was sentenced to death in absentia.[6][7] Luai Sakra and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were sentenced in absentia in 2002 for their part in the plot, which included using poison gas during the bombing.[8]

LAX bombing plot

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Ahmed Ressam was arrested on the ferry MV Coho while attempting to cross into the US at Port Angeles.

Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian citizen living in Montreal, Canada, confessed after interrogation to having planned to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on New Year's Eve. He was arrested by a U.S. Customs Service inspector at Port Angeles, Washington, a U.S. port of entry, on December 14, 1999. Customs officials found a cache of explosives that could have produced "a blast forty times greater than that of a devastating car bomb" and four timing devices hidden in the spare tire well in the trunk of the rented car in which he had traveled from Canada.[9][10] Ressam later asserted that the plot was facilitated by Zubaydah and known to bin Laden.[11][12]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted door-to-door interviews of up to 50 individuals across the country, made "dozens of arrests" as part of investigations into possible other individuals linked to the case,[13][14][15] and reportedly "questioned hundreds of Muslims from Los Angeles to Boston, wiretapped hundreds of conversations, and put hundreds of individuals under surveillance".[16][17] Abdelghani Meskini, a known criminal was arrested in Brooklyn, New York on December 30 by Joint Terrorism Task Force for his links to Ressam.[18][19][20] In New York and Boston, nine other Algerians linked to Meskini were arrested by the FBI, as part of the largest counter-terrorism operation ever conducted in the United States, dubbed Operation "Borderbom".[16] Most, including Meskini faced minor charges after no significant terrorism links could be proven, although a main suspected bomb-making accomplice, Abdelmajid Dahoumane had fled the country.[16] Other suspected targets alleged by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sources included the Seattle Space Needle and Disneyland, California,[21] with maps found with circles around "three California airports—Los Angeles International, Long Beach and Ontario—as well as maps with San Francisco's landmark Transamerica building and Seattle's Space Needle."[22]

Ressam began cooperating with investigators in 2001. He was initially sentenced to 22 years in prison, but in 2010 an appellate court reversed and remanded the case based on procedural errors and recommended that his sentence be extended.[23] He was re-sentenced to 37 years' imprisonment in 2012.[24] Another Algerian-Canadian, Mokhtar Haouari was sentenced to 24 years imprisonment for assisting Ressam in the plot.[25] Abu Doha was indicted for the plot, but was denied extradition from the United Kingdom.[26][27]

Hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814

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Main article: Indian Airlines Flight 814

Indian Airlines Flight 814, en route from Kathmandu, Nepal to New Delhi, India was hijacked on December 24, 1999, by five militants of the al-Qaeda-linked Harkat-ul-Mujahideen group.[3][28] The hijackers reportedly told the captain, "Fly slowly, fly carefully, there is no hurry. We have to give India a millennium gift," as a bomb in the cargo room of the plane was timed to go off at midnight, December 31, 1999. The plane eventually landed in Taliban-controlled Kandahar, Afghanistan. On December 31, India agreed to release three captive militants in exchange for the nearly 200 passengers and crew that were being held hostage.[29][30]

Lebanon and Syria clashes

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Main article: Dinnieh clashes

On December 31, 1999, attacks were launched by a group of up to 300 radical Islamists against Lebanese Army forces in the Dinnieh district in northern Lebanon.[2][31] The group behind the attack, calling itself after the apocalyptic Takfir wal-Hijra group[32] was led by Bassam Kanj, a close associate of Raed Hijazi who had been indicted for his involvement in the Jordan bombing plots. Kanj had met Hijazi in the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan, and they later worked for the same Boston taxi company in the United States in the 1990s.[33] The fighting lasted for eight days, and killed eleven soldiers, five civilians, and 28 Islamists.[34]

Lebanon being under Syrian occupation at the time, the Lebanon clashes followed clashes in Syria between Syrian security forces and Islamists, some of whom were accused of infiltrating the country from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, that began on December 30 when several Syrian intelligence agents were ambushed and killed. The clashes lasted for four days in Damascus, Homs and nearby villages, and the Hizb ut-Tahrir group claimed that 1,200 of its members had been arrested by January 2000.[31][35]

USS The Sullivans bombing attempt

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On January 3, 2000, in Yemen, members of al-Qaeda attempted to use a boat with explosives to damage the warship USS The Sullivans while it was refueling in Aden. The attempt failed when the over-loaded, bomb-laden boat sank before detonating.[36][37][38]

Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Al Badawi and Fahd al-Quso were charged in absentia in United States district court in 2003 for their alleged roles in several terrorist acts, including the attempted bombing of The Sullivans.[39] In 2011, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, held in Guantanamo, was charged with planning the attack on The Sullivans along with other attacks, facing death penalty.[40][41]

Other plots

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According to National Security Advisor of the Clinton administration, Sandy Berger, terrorist cells had been disrupted in "eight countries" in the weeks before New Year's Eve, which was said to have "almost certainly" prevented additional attacks.[3] The man behind the LAX plot, Ahmed Ressam, claimed there had been plans by other terrorist cells of millennium attacks "in Europe, in the Gulf, against U.S. and Israel."[3] Major security operations were launched to improve security for the millennium celebrations in Times Square, New York, along with several other cities in the United States and Europe.[42][43]

In anticipation of the turn to the new millennium, official concerns by the FBI and U.S. authorities had focused on purported threats by "apocalyptic" religious or political groups, claimed to include lone wolf white supremacists, Christian apocalyptic cults or radical elements of militia organizations.[13][44][45]

Aftermath

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Investigation

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While in prison, Ressam revealed that al-Qaeda sleeper cells existed within the United States. This information was included in the President's Daily Brief delivered to President George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, entitled Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US.[11][12]

FBI special agent and counter-terrorism chief John P. O'Neill, who had been central in the investigation of al-Qaeda in the late 1990s and the millennium plot, and subsequently suspected the existence of sleeper cells in the United States, died in the September 11 attacks in 2001 as head of security of the World Trade Center. O'Neill had started his new job on August 23 less than a month before the attack, after he had been squeezed out of the bureau.[19]

On July 19, 2004, it was revealed that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating former National Security Advisor of the Clinton administration, Sandy Berger, for unauthorized removal of classified documents in October 2003 from a National Archives reading room prior to testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The documents were five classified copies of a single report commissioned from Richard A. Clarke, covering internal assessments of the Clinton administration's handling of the plots. An associate of Berger said Berger took one copy in September 2003 and four copies in October 2003.[46]

Attacks

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After the unsuccessful attack on USS The Sullivans, al-Qaeda attempted the same type of attack for a second time, again in Aden, Yemen. They successfully bombed USS Cole on October 12, 2000, in an attack that claimed the lives of seventeen U.S. sailors.[3]

The Radisson SAS hotel in Amman, Jordan, which was the target of a millennium attack plot, was one of three hotels in the city that were bombed by al-Qaeda in 2005. Thirty-eight people were killed in the bombing, which was the deadliest of the three hotels attacked.[47]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Planned Jan. 2000 Attacks Failed or Were Thwarted; Plot Targeted U.S., Jordan, American Warship, Official Says", Vernon Loeb, The Washington Post, December 24, 2000 (subscription required) (mirrored at "todd". Archived from the original on July 15, 2011. Retrieved August 12, 2009.)
  2. ^ a b Soufan, Ali (2011). The Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaeda. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 144. ISBN 9780393083477. Archived from the original on January 24, 2023. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g "Other Millennium Attacks". PBS Frontline. October 25, 2001. Archived from the original on September 4, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2016.
  4. ^ "Amman Radisson Targeted in Foiled Millennium Attack". ABC News. American Broadcasting Company. November 9, 2005. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
  5. ^ "Dissecting a Terror Plot From Boston to Amman". The New York Times. January 15, 2001. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved February 18, 2017.
  6. ^ "Six Muslim militants sentenced to death for plotting to attack tourists in Jordan". The Independent. September 19, 2000. Archived from the original on May 1, 2022.
  7. ^ "U.S.-Jordanian sentenced to death". CNN. February 11, 2002. Archived from the original on September 1, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2016.
  8. ^ "Syrian Terror Suspect: Aladdin of the Black Forest". Der Spiegel. August 15, 2005. Archived from the original on August 20, 2016. Retrieved July 13, 2016.
  9. ^ U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (February 2, 2010). "U.S. v. Ressam" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on October 4, 2012. Retrieved February 27, 2010.
  10. ^ "Complaint; U.S. v. Ressam" (PDF). NEFA Foundation. December 1999. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 1, 2012. Retrieved February 26, 2010.
  11. ^ a b "Transcript: Bin Laden determined to strike in US". CNN. April 10, 2004. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved July 18, 2016.
  12. ^ a b "Bin Laden memo puts Bush on back foot". The Independent. April 12, 2004. Archived from the original on May 1, 2022.
  13. ^ a b "World prepares for millennium attacks". United Press International. December 23, 1999. Archived from the original on August 8, 2016. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  14. ^ "FBI 'terrorism' swoop". BBC. December 30, 1999. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  15. ^ "U.S. links Canadian woman to bomb-smuggling suspect". CNN. December 30, 1999. Archived from the original on August 18, 2016. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  16. ^ a b c Adams, Lorraine (August 20, 2007). "The Other Man". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on August 22, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2017.
  17. ^ "Chapter 14: The Warning". Seattle Times. July 2002. Archived from the original on April 13, 2016. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  18. ^ "Big Apple's Millennium Bash". CBS News. December 31, 1999. Archived from the original on August 19, 2016. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  19. ^ a b Wright, Lawrence (January 14, 2002). "The Counter-Terrorist". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on July 23, 2016. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  20. ^ "U.S. Case Against Informer Bares a Tangled Bond". The New York Times. October 17, 2010. Archived from the original on July 21, 2015. Retrieved February 18, 2017.
  21. ^ "Terrorists targeted Disneyland, Space Needle". United Press International. February 20, 2001. Archived from the original on August 7, 2016. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  22. ^ "Millennium Terror Plot Foiled, U.s. Tells Trial". Chicago Tribune. March 14, 2001. Archived from the original on August 17, 2016. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  23. ^ "'Millennium bomber' sentence overturned; feds seek longer one". CNN. February 2, 2010. Archived from the original on March 29, 2010. Retrieved April 21, 2010.
  24. ^ 'Millennium bomber' Ahmed Ressam given longer sentence Archived October 28, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, BBC News, October 24, 2012
  25. ^ "New York: Manhattan: Conviction Upheld In Bomb Plot". The New York Times. January 28, 2003. Archived from the original on March 9, 2016. Retrieved February 18, 2017.
  26. ^ "Germany sends 4 to prison in New Year's plot". Chicago Tribune. March 11, 2003. Archived from the original on February 13, 2016. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  27. ^ "Lacking evidence, Britain to free LAX bomb plot suspect". The Los Angeles Times. June 29, 2008. Archived from the original on February 14, 2016. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  28. ^ "Kandahar plane hijack: Rehman admits link with terrorists". The Indian Express. June 23, 2016. Archived from the original on June 24, 2016. Retrieved July 20, 2016.
  29. ^ Riedel, Bruce O. (2012). Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad. Brookings Institution Press. pp. 58–59. ISBN 9780815722748. Archived from the original on January 24, 2023. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  30. ^ Hiro, Dilip (2014). "War Without End: The Rise of Islamist Terrorism and Global Response". Routledge. pp. 287–288. ISBN 9781136485565. Archived from the original on January 24, 2023. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  31. ^ a b Gambill, Gary C. (January 2000). "Syrian, Lebanese Security Forces Crush Sunni Islamist Opposition". Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. 2 (1). Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved July 16, 2017.
  32. ^ Rubin, Barry (2012). Revolutionaries and Reformers: Contemporary Islamist Movements in the Middle East. SUNY Press. p. 18. ISBN 9780791487396. Archived from the original on January 24, 2023. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  33. ^ Rabil, R. (2011). Religion, National Identity, and Confessional Politics in Lebanon: The Challenge of Islamism. Springer. p. 192. ISBN 9780230339255. Archived from the original on January 24, 2023. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  34. ^ Rabil, Robert G. (2014). Salafism in Lebanon: From Apoliticism to Transnational Jihadism. Georgetown University Press. p. 167. ISBN 9781626161177. Archived from the original on January 24, 2023. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  35. ^ Khatib, Line (2012). "Islamic Revivalism in Syria: The Rise and Fall of Ba'thist Secularism". Routledge. p. 194. ISBN 9781136661778. Archived from the original on January 24, 2023. Retrieved November 23, 2020.
  36. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2004). "Terrorism 2000/2001 2004–306-694". www.fbi.gov. United States Government Printing Office. Archived from the original on June 21, 2016. Retrieved February 4, 2015. (PDF version Archived February 4, 2021, at the Wayback Machine)
  37. ^ Piszkiewicz, Dennis (2003). Terrorism's war with America: A history (first ed.). Westport, Conn.: Praeger. pp. 123. ISBN 978-0-275-97952-2. Retrieved February 4, 2015.
  38. ^ "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror" Richard A. Clarke. ISBN 0-7432-6823-7 [page needed]
  39. ^ "U.S. Charges Cole Role Players". CBS News. April 11, 2003. Archived from the original on August 19, 2016. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  40. ^ "USS Cole Bombing Fast Facts". CNN. April 6, 2016. Archived from the original on January 3, 2015. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  41. ^ "USS Cole bombing 'mastermind' arraigned in Guantánamo". The Telegraph. November 9, 2011. Archived from the original on April 13, 2019. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
  42. ^ "Federal agents are scrambling to stop a new Y2K worry: terror". CNN. December 27, 1999. Archived from the original on May 9, 2017. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  43. ^ "Big bang theory haunts the US". The Guardian. December 28, 1999. Archived from the original on August 26, 2016. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  44. ^ "FBI to warn local police to be alert for extremist millennium attacks". The Journal Times. October 21, 1999. Archived from the original on September 3, 2020. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  45. ^ "This Week in History: Y2K, terror and apocalypse". The Jerusalem Post. December 31, 2010. Archived from the original on August 18, 2016. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  46. ^ "Sandy Berger to plead guilty on documents charge". CNN. April 1, 2005. Archived from the original on September 1, 2020. Retrieved May 23, 2010.
  47. ^ "Amman Radisson Targeted in Foiled Millennium Attack". ABC News. November 9, 2005. Archived from the original on October 28, 2020. Retrieved June 27, 2020.
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