Make one laugh.

MI6 gave US two years' warning of bin Laden's flying bomb plot.
By Peter Fray, Herald Correspondent in London and agencies
June 10 2002





Britain's intelligence agency, MI6, warned the United States about al-Qaeda plans to crash hijacked planes into buildings two years before the September 11 terrorist attacks.

US embassy staff in London were informed about the plot after MI6 received information that Osama bin Laden's followers were planning to use civilian aircraft in "unconventional ways, possibly as flying bombs".

Details of MI6's warning are expected to be presented at a secret congressional hearing in Washington this week into failures of US intelligence agencies, according to London's Sunday Times newspaper.

The MI6 information did not specify targets or timing and might not have prevented the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, in which more than 3000 people died. But given other recent revelations, the information raises serious questions about the failure of the CIA and FBI to predict and prevent September 11 attacks and will increase pressure on President George Bush for widespread reform of US intelligence.

Foreign Office sources told the paper MI6 had information in 1998 on increased al-Qaeda activity and potential attacks against US interests in Europe, possibly its Paris embassy.


The Bush Administration was warned by Egyptian intelligence early last September that Bin Laden operatives were close to making a significant move against an American target.

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has told Mr Bush that intelligence chiefs used an agent close to al-Qaeda in a bid to halt the operation. But they had no indication of the target or the scale of the attack.