After the deadly September 11, 2001, that took the lives of nearly 3,000 people, ex Al-Qaeda head Osama bin Laden had allegedly planned a second attack against the United States of America (USA).
According to a report by CBS News, papers obtained by US Navy SEALs after bin Laden’s assassination in 2011 have recently revealed that the Al-Qaeda leader wanted to use private jets instead of passenger planes and if that was not possible, cut 12 metres of US train tracks in order to create a derailment leading to massive deaths.
Author and Islamic scholar Nelly Lahoud, who has spent much of her career researching Al-Qaeda and has examined thousands of pages of Osama bin Laden’s personal letters and notes, spoke in a 60-minute interview aired on CBS and said that Bin Laden did not anticipate the US’s reaction of going for a full-fledged war soon after 9/11 attacks.
According to the declassified papers, Lahoud said that Bin Laden thought that the attack would lead the Americans to pressurize the government to withdraw from the Muslim majority state.
Lahoud further stated that Bin Laden did not communicate with his group for the next three years but then reconnected in 2004 when he offered a similar plan of attack. Although he was “very eager” to replicate 9/11, he was also mindful of the increase in security at the airport.
In the interview, Lahoud read a letter written by the terrorist himself where he proposed his idea of operating through a charted plane than a passenger plane. And if that is not possible, he proposed the derailment of railway tracks.
“He wanted to have 12 meters of steel rail removed so that, this way, the train could be derailed. And we find him, explaining the simple toolkit that they could use. You know, he said, ‘You’re – you could use a compressor. You could use a smelting iron tool’,” Lahoud told CBS.
However, the idea remained an idea.
The letters of Bin Laden also revealed that he was targeting attacking multiple crude oil tankers and major shipping outlets in the Middle East and Africa.
“Bin Laden suggested Al-Qaeda operatives could integrate themselves into the port areas by posing as fishermen. He instructed his team on where to buy specific boats to evade radar and detailed how the vessels should be used to transport explosives.
Presently Al-Queda is being headed by its second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to CBS, this month, he appeared in a new video denouncing the enemies of Islam.
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