Bigger Than 9/11? The Terror Plot That Nearly Rocked Asia & America

If not for a twist of fate, a coordinated terrorist attack of epic proportions could have occurred in 1995 - six years before the September 11, 2001 attacks in America - resulting in the assassination of the Pope and the deaths of some 4,000 people, including many Filipinos, Indonesians, Singaporeans and Malaysians.

The Bojinka Plot was hatched in Manila, the Philippines, by the chief architect of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; and his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, the bombmaker behind the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing. The money trail, just like in the 9/11 attacks, led back to Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden.

00:00 The Bojinka Plot involved three phases of attacks and a test run.
01:58 One: The assassination of Pope John Paul II during his visit to Manila.
02:12 Two: Bombing 11 passenger planes en route from Asia to the US.
02:38 Three: Crashing a plane into CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia.
02:57 Test run on Dec 14, 1994, with the bombing of Philippines Airlines flight 434 en route from Cebu to Tokyo; one Japanese passenger died.
05:46 How the Bojinka Plot was discovered in Manila - and why the warning signs for 9/11 were ignored.

American intelligence agencies couldn’t believe that such terror attacks would be planned in the Philippines. The 9/11 commission report later found this to be a failure of intelligence.

Al-Qaeda has had long-standing ties with the Philippine Islamist separatist group Abu Sayyaf. Its founder, Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani, reportedly fought in Afghanistan alongside Osama in the 1990s.

WATCH the full episode of 20 Years After 9/11: How Has Terror In The Philippines Changed? https://youtu.be/CKy9y07ooYU

ALSO WATCH:
20 Years After 9/11: Can Indonesia Win The War Against Terrorism? https://youtu.be/9t_1W1ogva8
The Faces Of Counter-Terrorism In Philippines & Indonesia: https://youtu.be/MjkMv99GzqA
Taliban’s Afghanistan & Terror In ASEAN: Indonesian Reformer: https://youtu.be/xfZpuqsjjMk

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