The CIA warned years before 9/11 about a threat involving an “explosive airplane”, according to a release of declassified presidential briefings.
The spy agency has made public 71 presidential briefings, including one indicating that it had assessed Al Qaeda’s plans as being known among extremists. The material places the warning within intelligence briefings prepared before the 11 September attacks.
One of the released documents refers to the threat of an “explosive airplane”, a phrase that now carries clear historical significance because of its timing before 9/11. The supplied material does not provide further details about the specific date of the briefing, the precise nature of the warning, or what response followed.
The release adds to the public record of what intelligence officials had identified in the years before the attacks. It also shows that concerns linked to Al Qaeda and aircraft-related threats had appeared in high-level intelligence material before 9/11.
The latest known development is the publication of the 71 declassified briefings. No additional official response or explanation was included in the supplied material.
