Why the Bojinka Blackout?
Media Monitor | By Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid | October 15, 2001
. . . they had discovered a plot called “Operation Bojinka” to plant bombs in U.S. airliners and hijack others to crash them into buildings like the CIA headquarters.
We first learned about Operation Bojinka from a story in the Sydney Morning Herald published two days after the hijacked airliners crashed into the twin towers and the Pentagon. The story from Agence France-Presse quoted Avelino Razon, the Philippines chief police superintendent, as saying that in 1995, they had discovered a plot called "Operation Bojinka" to plant bombs in U.S. airliners and hijack others to crash them into buildings like the CIA headquarters. He said this was found on the computer of Ramzi Yousef, who organized the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. His laptop was found in the apartment he shared with his accomplice, Abdul Murad. Razon said both were agents of Osama bin Laden.
The Washington Post sent four reporters to Manila to look into this story. Their front-page story on September 23, said that the Philippine police had found "a clandestine terrorist cell allied with Osama bin Laden" that was plotting "to plant bombs in a dozen American airliners and fly an airplane into the CIA headquarters." The Post said a Filipino investigator exclaimed as he watched the attack on the World Trade Center, "It's Bojinka." He told reporters, "We told the Americans everything about Bojinka. Why didn't they pay attention?"
The Philippine Daily Inquirer said the Philippine intelligence report was passed on to the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Joint Task Force on Terrorism. Razon said, "It was not given credibility. Otherwise, it could have prevented the destruction of the World Trade Center." He said, "Bojinka called for the hijacking of U.S. commercial airliners, bombing them or crashing them into several targets, including the CIA." Yousef and Murad were prosecuted in New York by Dietrich Snell, who was quoted by the New York Daily News as saying that he focused on the plot to plant bombs on airliners, not on the plan to crash a plane into CIA headquarters. The story said that two years ago Murad offered to cooperate with prosecutors in return for a more lenient sentence. He might have told more about the plan to hijack and crash airliners, but we will never know. His offer was rejected.
Despite the Washington Post story, other news organizations, including the New York Times and the Washington Times ignored it. Howell Raines, executive editor of the New York Times, said they didn't report it because it was a six-year-old story. That is all the more reason to bring it up now. The media must expose those at the CIA and FBI who dropped the ball. Raines said that's unnecessary because their incompetence is well known.
A suspected terrorist from Algeria named Zacarias Moussaoui detained for visa violations had applied to a flight school for training. He wanted to learn how to steer a jumbo jet, but not how to land it. The Washington Post said, "Our intelligence groups studied him but had no context in which his odd request made sense."
That reveals the incompetence mentioned by Raines. I have commended the Post for their story, and Raines commended both the Post and AIM for our enterprise. The real reason the Times and others haven't run the story is because they hate to admit they were scooped.
Reed Irvine is the former Chairman of Accuracy In Media and Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report.
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