Three years before 9/11, CIA warned Clinton that Bin Laden wanted to strike India
Three years before the 9/11 attacks shocked the United States, then-President Bill Clinton was warned by the CIA that Osama bin Laden intended to carry out attacks in India, Pakistan, Uganda and possibly Nigeria.A newly declassified CIA warning dated August 28, 1998, said Bin Laden had survived US missile strikes in Afghanistan and retained a network of individuals and allied groups across at least 60 countries that could be used to mount attacks.The assessment specifically listed India and Pakistan, along with Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula – particularly Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Yemen – Uganda and possibly Nigeria, as countries where Bin Laden intended to conduct attacks.
Bin Laden also viewed India as part of what he described as a “Crusader-Zionist-Hindu” conspiracy against the Islamic world, reflecting the ideological lens through which he framed India and its relationship with the US and Israel.The CIA said Bin Laden was also considering further attacks against the US and UK, although he had not indicated precise targets or timing.The assessment came weeks after the August 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people and brought Bin Laden’s organisation firmly into the sights of US counterterrorism agencies.The newly released document said Bin Laden’s infrastructure in North America, Europe and East Asia also lent credibility to reports that he could target US interests in those regions.The CIA assessment further noted that Bin Laden had authorised an associate to explore attacks in the US and that US officials had recently helped arrest Bin Laden operatives preparing attacks in Tirana and possibly Baku.
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The India reference is significant because it shows that the threat posed by Bin Laden’s network was being assessed as extending beyond the Middle East, Africa and the US well before the September 11 attacks.The August 1998 assessment was part of a series of intelligence warnings about Bin Laden that accumulated in the years before 9/11. The newly released material includes warnings about his pursuit of unconventional weapons, potential attacks on US soil and, later, the possibility of aircraft hijackings.The documents also show that Bin Laden’s network was not viewed as a purely Afghanistan-based threat. The CIA described a global infrastructure capable of supporting or inspiring attacks across multiple regions.For India, the 1998 assessment offers an early glimpse of how New Delhi had already figured in US intelligence assessments of the emerging Bin Laden threat, years before the attacks that would transform global counterterrorism policy.
