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Al-Qaeda planned to attack Los Angeles building: Bush

Suzanne Goldenberg

The plot was to fly hijacked aircraft into the 72-storey Library Tower

Washington: United States President George W. Bush, on the defensive over controversial measures in the war on terror, on Thursday gave new details of a foiled Al-Qaeda plot to use Asian recruits and shoebombs to hijack an airliner and fly it into the tallest building on America's west coast.

In a speech to the National Guard Association in Washington, Mr Bush claimed that the conspiracy was evidence of Al-Qaeda's determination to launch a new attack on U.S. soil. ``We cannot let the fact that America hadn't been attacked in four-and-a-half years since September 11, lull us into an illusion that threats to our nation have disappeared,'' he said.

He offered as his most compelling example a plot hatched by the architect of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to fly hijacked aircraft into the 72-storey Library Tower - since renamed the U.S. Bank Tower - in Los Angeles.

Within a month of the 9/11 attacks, in October 2001, ``the mastermind of the September 11 attacks had already set in motion a plan to have terrorist operatives hijack an airplane using shoebombs to breach the cockpit door and fly the plane into the tallest building on the West Coast'', the President said.

Jemaah leader recruited

Mohammed, who is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location, recruited the leader of an Al-Qaeda affiliate known as Jemaah Islamiyah, for the mission. Jemaah Islamiyah's most prominent operations chief, Hambali - also known as Riduan Isamuddin - was chosen because it was thought that south-east Asian hijackers would be less likely to arouse suspicions than Arab Muslims. ``Hambali recruited several key operatives who had been training in Afghanistan,'' Mr Bush said. ``Once the operatives were recruited, they met with Osama bin Laden, and then began preparations for the west coast attack.''

Hambali is believed to have gathered a cell of four men for the mission, including a pilot, and collected funds to pay them. The plot was thwarted in 2002 with the arrest of plotters in Malaysia. Hambali, who also planned the Bali bombings, was arrested in August 2003 in Thailand with two of his top lieutenants.

The scenario outlined by Mr Bush on Thursday was the fullest public acknowledgement to date of the ambitions of Al-Qaeda in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks - and their deadly ingenuity. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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