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Operation Bojinka, also Project Bojinka or Bojinka Plot, (pronounced Bo-GIN-ka), also sometimes transliterated as Bojinga or Bodžinka, was a planned large-scale terrorist attack and precursor to the September 11 Terrorist Attacks. The term can refer to the "airline bombing plot" alone, or that combined with the "Pope assassination plot" and the "CIA plane crash plot". Operation Bojinka was prevented, but some lessons learned were apparently used by the planners of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
The plotters were all members of Al-Qaida, an international terrorist organization which was then based in Sudan. Operation Bojinka was developed by Al-Qaida operatives Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed while they were in Manila, Philippines in 1994 and early 1995.
Bojinka is a slang word for "explosion" in many dialects of Arabic.
Several media outlets, including TIME Asia [1], wrongly claim that the word Bojinka means "loud bang" or "explosion" in Serbo-Croatian.
Sometimes, the name Operation Bojinka is used only to refer to Phase I airplane bombing plot. This article will also cover the Pope assassination plot and the airplane hijacking plots that were being planned in Manila at the same time.
Financing
The money that funded Operation Bojinka came from Osama bin Laden and possibly from several members of the Saudi Arabian royal family. Several of those members, including United States ambassador Prince Bandar, were major contributors to the International Islamic Relief Organization, a front company operated by Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. The members of the royal family deny knowingly funding terrorism. [25]
Wali Khan Amin Shah, an Afghan, was the financier of the plot. He funded the plot by laundering money through his girlfriend and other Manila women, several of whom were bar hostesses and one of whom was an employee at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. They were bribed with gifts and holiday trips so that they could open bank accounts to stash funds.
The transfers were small, about 27,685 to 55,370 Philippine pesos (500 to 1000 U.S. dollars) and would be handed over each night at a Wendy's or a karaoke bar. The funds went to "Adam Sali", an alias used by Ramzi Yousef. The money came through a Filipino bank account owned by Syrian Omar Abu Omar, who worked at International Relations and Information Centre, an Islamic organization run by Osama bin Laden's brother in law, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. [6]
A company called Konsojaya also provided financial assistance to the Manila cell by laundering money to it. Konsojaya was a front company that was started by the head of the group Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian named Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali. Wali Khan Amin Shah was one of the board of directors of the company.
Planning of Operation Bojinka
As soon as Yousef arrived in Manila along with other Arab Afghans that were making cells in Manila, he started to work on making bombs. Yousef had shown up in Singapore with Khan earlier in fall 1994. The two got their Philippine visass in Singapore. It was likely that Al-Qaida sent him to Manila to plot and implement a terrorist attack against the United States.
His first operational test of his bomb was inside a mall in Cebu City. The bomb detonated several hours after Yousef put it in a generator room. It caused minor damage, but it proved to Yousef that his bomb was workable.
He left Manila for several days, but was met by Al Qaida emissaries upon his return to Metro Manila. They asked him to attack United States President Bill Clinton, who was due to arrive in the Philippines on November 12, 1994 as part of a five-day tour of Asia. He thought of several ways to kill the president, including placing a bomb on Clinton's motorcade route, firing a stinger missile at Air Force One or the presidential limousine, and killing him with a chemical weapon called phosgene. However, he abandoned the idea as it would be too hard to kill the President. However, he would then incorporate his plan to kill the Pope into Operation Bojinka.
In 1994, Yousef and Khalid Sheik Mohammed started testing airport security. Yousef booked a flight between Kai Tak International Airport in Hong Kong and Chiang Kai Shek International Airport near Taipei. Mohammed booked a flight between Ninoy Aquino International Airport near Manila and Kimpo International Airport near Seoul.
The two had already converted fourteen bottles of contact lens solution into bottles containing nitroglycerin, which was readily available in the Philippines. Yousef taped a metal rod to the arch of his of foot in place of the detonators. Yousef and Mohammed wore jewelry and clothing with metal to confuse airport security. They packed condoms in their bags to support their alibi that they were meeting women. [16]
On December 8, Yousef moved into the Doña Josefa Apartments under the alias Najy Awaita Haddad and purported himself to be a Moroccan. Edith Guerrera, the manager, laughed with the receptionist after the two men asked for new registration forms. "Perhaps they have forgotten their names," she said as the first ones were torn up. Yousef had accidentally put his "real name" on the first form. He didn't want to get discovered too early. [6] [24]
Yousef had booked Room 603 in advance. He had made an 80,000 Philippine peso (1,444 United States dollars) deposit, and had added 40,000 pesos ($72,222 US) up front before taking the elevator to Room 603. [24]
A conspirator named Abdul Hakim Murad came to Manila with Yousef and stayed at that apartment.
The apartments are located in the Malate district, 200 meters away from the embassy of the Vatican City in the Philippines, and 500 meters down the street from Manila Police Station No. 9 on Quirino Avenue. One of the windows at Suite 603 looks down on the path that the Papal motorcade was to take. Middle Easterners often rent units there to hang out at nightclubs such as the Malate nightclub, which are often nonexistent in their home countries. [6]
People were suspicious of the men in Room 603. The men renting the apartment were very secretive. According to Guerrera, "They gave me the impression that they were here to study," said Mrs Guerrera. "They looked like students. They double locked the door when they were inside or out. They didn't ask the room boy to clear up the room." The men, who had chemical burns on their hands, were carrying boxes and never hired other people to carry them up. The boxes contained chemicals bought from suppliers in Manila and Quezon City in Metro Manila. Yousef would use these to make his bombs. [24] [19]
Mohammed purported himself to be a Saudi or Qatari plywood exporter named Abdul Majid. Yousef and Mohammed had already started planning Operation Bojinka. [19]
According to Abdul Hakim Murad, Yousef got an idea for crashing a plane into the CIA while at the apartments. According to Murad, Yousef replied, "OK, we will think about it," before heading off with Khalid Shaikh to Puerto Galera for scuba diving.
At the time, Khalid Sheik Mohammed was staying at a lavish apartment across the street from a person that would become the President of the Philippines. He often went trips elsewhere to promote Konsojaya. [19]
On December 1, Shah placed a bomb under a seat in a Manila movie theatre to test what would happen if a bomb exploded under an airline seat. The bomb went off. Nobody got hurt.
On December 11, 1994, Yousef built another bomb, which had one tenth of the power that his final bombs were planned to have, in the lavatory of the aircraft and left it under his seat, 27F, after he got off the plane from a flight that arrived in Cebu. Yousef had boarded the flight under an assumed name. The aircraft was Philippine Airlines Flight 434 using that aircraft on a Manila to Narita route. Yousef had set the timer for four hours after he got off the aircraft. The bomb exploded while the aircraft was over Minami Daito Island, near Okinawa, Japan. A Japanese businessman was killed after the bomb detonated. The Boeing 747-200 safely made an emergency landing. None of the aircraft's other two-hundred and seventy-two passengers were killed, although 10 passengers in front of Ikegami were injured. None of the crew members were killed. Yousef then planned which flights to attack for Phase I.
If Phase I of Operation Bojinka was pulled off, it would have been the most devastating terrorist attack in history in terms of casualties.
United States airlines had been chosen instead of Asian airlines to maximize the shock toward Americans. The flights targeted were listed under operatives with codenames, such as "Zyed", "Majbos" or "Obaid". Obaid, who was really Abdul Hakim Murad, was to hit United flight 80, and then he was to go back to Singapore under another United flight which he would bomb. [6] [23]
Zyed was to hit Northwest Flight 30. [6]
The bombs would have been timed before the operatives stepped off the planes. The aircraft would have blown up over over the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea almost simultaneously. If this plan worked, several thousand would have perished, and air travel would have been shut down worldwide for days, if not weeks. The U.S. government estimated the prospective death toll to be about 4,000 if the plot had been executed.
Yousef got batteries past airport security during his December 11 test by hiding them in his hollowed-out heels of his shoes. Yousef smuggled the nitroglycerin on board by putting it inside a contact lens solution bottle.
Phase two would have involved Abdul Hakim Murad either renting, buying, or hijacking a small airplane, preferably a Cessna. The airplane would be filled with explosives. He would then crash it into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Murad had been trained as a pilot in North Carolina, and was slated to be a suicide pilot. Murad probably created this version of the plan.
There were alternate plans to hijack a 12th commercial airliner and use that instead of the small aircraft, probably due to the Manila cell's growing frustration with explosives. Testing explosives in a house or apartment is dangerous, and it can easily give away a terrorist plot. Khalid Sheik Mohammed probably made the alternate plan.
A report from the Philippines to the United States on January 20, 1995 stated, "What the subject has in his mind is that he will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger. Then he will hijack [the] said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at the CIA headquarters."
Another plot the men were cooking up would have involved hijacking of more airplanes. The Sears Tower (Chicago, Illinois), The Pentagon, the Washington Capitol, the White House, the Transamerica Tower, and the World Trade Center would be the likely targets.
In his confession with Filipino investigators, Abdul Hakim Murad said that the Manila cell could not recruit enough people to implement other hijackings prior to the foiling of Operation Bojinka.
The plot was abandoned after an apartment fire occurred during the night in Manila, Philippines on Friday, January 6, 1995.
The fire occurred before the Pope, John Paul II, was scheduled to visit the Philippines on January 12. Also, a typhoon had hit Manila not that long ago before the fire. The incident took place at six-story Doña Josefa apartments.
The fire was started when Abdul Hakim Murad started a chemical fire in the kitchen sink in Suite 603 in the 6th floor of the Doña Josefa apartment by pouring water on a substance. The smoke came when water was poured on to douse the fire. The fire was spotted at about 11 P.M. after residents complained about an odor. Edith Guerrera, the owner of the apartments, called the fire brigade, but the fire went out unassisted. Yousef and Murad had told the firefighters to stay away, before they fled. [8] Police, including 55-year old watch commander Aida D. Fariscal, who decided to investigate the situation, first found four hot plates in their packing crates, what looked like cotton batting soaked in a beige solution, and loops of green, red, blue, and yellow electrical wiring. The telephone rang, and the police ran downstairs thinking that it was a trap. [6] They left the apartment to seek a search warrant. Fariscal had been suspicious of the men in room 603 due to a chain of bombings that happened in the Philippines prior to January 6.
According to police records, the policemen had to ask eleven judges before they found one that would sign the search warrant. [19]
After police came back and discovered the evidence, they arrested a man who called himself Ahmed Saeed. Saeed claimed that he was a commercial pilot that was on the way to the precinct house to explain the firecrackers that he said went off. Saeed tried to run away, but he was arrested after he tripped over a tree root. He was hauled to the precinct in a taxi van with the help of two other people. Saeed offered 110,740 Philippine pesos ($2,000 U.S. dollars) to the policemen if they let him go, but the officers refused to let him go, despite the fact that Manila policemen did not make that much money in a year at the time. [6] At the precinct, Saeed signed a statement saying that he was innocent and that he was a tourist visiting his friend in his chemical import/export business. Saeed then mumbled about "two Satans that must be destroyed: the Pope and America." [6]
More chemicals, such as gallons of sulfuric, picric, and nitric acid, pure glycerin, acetone, sodium trichlorate, nitrobenzoyl, ammonia, silver nitrates, methanamine, and ANFO binary explosive were found. Several cans of gasoline and two large Welch's grape juice bottles containing nitroglycerin were found. Some of those chemicals were concocted into a smoking mixture of explosives in the kitchen sink. Equipment such as thermometers, graduated cylinders, large cooking kettles, funnels, fuses, filters, soldering irons, beakers, mortars, pestles, different electronic fusing systems, timers, switches, circuit breakers, and a box of Rough Rider lubricated condoms were found. A finished remote control brass pipe bomb and another pipe bomb that was about to be packed were found. A chemistry textbook and a chemical dictionary were found. A TIME magazine with the cover story on international terrorism was found. [6] [24] [19]
Also found was a pharmacy receipt and a bottle of contact lens solution.
The most damning piece of evidence found so far was a manual written in Arabic on how to build a liquid bomb.
The formula went like this:
Phase I
The details of Phase I were found in the evidence discovered in the investigation into Room 603 in the Doña Josefa (for more information, see Section: The evidence in Room 603)Pope assassination plot
The first plan was a plan to kill Pope John Paul II when he visited the Philippines. On January 15, 1995, a suicide bomber would dress up as a priest while John Paul II was in his motorcade on his way to visiting the Federation of Asian Bishops; Conference at the San Carlos Seminary, which is located along Edsa, Guadalupe, Makati City. The assassin would stick a bomb inside one of his sleeves of the robe. He would then use the disguise to get closer to the Pope, and detonate the bomb when Pope John Paul II would approach to kiss him. The planned assassination of the Pope was intended to divert attention from the next part of the phase. About 20 men had been trained by Yousef to carry out this act prior to January 1995.Airline bombing plot
The next plan would have involved at least five Al Qaida operatives, including Yousef, Khan, Shah and two more unknown operatives. Starting on January 21, 1995 and ending on January 22, 1995, they would set the bombs on 11 United States-bound airliners that had stopovers all around East Asia and Southeast Asia. All of the flights had two legs. The bombs would be planted on the first leg, when each terrorist would disembark. He would then board one or two more flights and repeat. After all of the terrorists planted bombs on all of the flights, each terrorist would then catch flights to Lahore, Pakistan. The terrorists never needed U.S visass, as they only would have stayed on the planes on their first legs in Asia.The bomb
The "Mark II" "microbombs" had Casio digital watches as the timers, stabilizers that looked like cotton wool balls, and an undetectable nitroglycerin as the explosive. Other ingredients included small parts of sulfuric acid, nitrobenzene, silver azide, liquid acetone, and nitrate.Two 9-Volt batteries in each bomb were used as a power source. The batteries would be connected to light bulb filaments that would detonate the bomb. The batteries were taken from children's toys. The wiring would be attached to the arm of the watch using a tiny space under the calculator. The alteration was so small that the watch could still be worn in a normal manner.Airports planned to be affected
Flights planned to be affected
Phase II, CIA plane crash plot
Abdul Hakim Murad confessed details of Phase II in his torture and interrogation with Manila police after his capture. (for more information, see Section:Murad's Confession)Discovery and Termination of Operation Bojinka
All times mentioned are in Manila, Philippines time.The evidence in Room 603
When the officers returned to Suite 603 at 2:30 a.m. on January 7, they found street maps of Manila with routes plotting the papal motorcade, a rosary, a photograph of the pontiff, bibles, crucifixes, papal confessions, and clothes similar to those worn by a priest, including robes and collars. A phone message from a tailor reminding the occupant that the cassock was ready to be tried on suggested to the senior inspector that an assassination attempt was going to be placed on the Pope. A search warrant was granted by 4 A.M on January 7. [6] [24]
A finished time bomb was placed in a cupboard under the sink. Other Casio watches were found in the apartment.
Stacks of 12 false passports, including false Norwegian, Afghan, Saudi, Pakistani and other faked passports "issued" by other countries were also found in the apartment. Investigators found a business card from Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. Saeed was found to possess five telephone numbers from Khalifa. They found phone numbers from Rose Masquera, Mohammed's girlfriend. [6]
Yousef's pet project was discovered on four floppy diskettes and a Toshiba laptop personal computer inside his apartment, two weeks before the plot would have been implemented. The first string of text in one of the files states, "All people who support the U.S. government are our targets in our future plans and that is because all those people are responsible for their government's actions and they support the U.S. foreign policy and are satisfied with it. We will hit all U.S. nuclear targets. If the U.S. government keeps supporting Israel, then we will continue to carry out operations inside and outside the United States to include ..." and the text ends.
A file named "Bojinka" lists the eleven flights between Asia and the United States, which were grouped under five codenames. Strings were found, such as "SETTING: 9:30 PM to 10:30 PM. TIMER: 23HR. BOJINKA: 20:30-21:30 NRT Date 5" (for United flight 80), and "SETTING: 8:30-9:00. TIMER: 10HR. BOJINKA: 19:30-20:00 NRT Date 4" (for Northwest Flight 30). [6]
The laptop had names of dozens of associates, including some photographs of a few of them and including contact information for Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. They contained records of information about five-star hotels, dealings with a London trading corporation, a meat market owner in Malaysia, and an Islamic center in Tucson, Arizona. Information about how money moved through an Abu Dhabi banking firm was found.
A communication signed "Khalid Shaikh Bojinka" was also found on Yousef's computer that threatened to attack targets "in response to the financial, political and military assistance given to the Jewish state in the occupied land of Palestine by the American Government." The letter also said that the terrorists claimed to have "ability to make and use chemicals and poisonous gas... for use against vital institutions and populations and the sources of drinking water." [24] [6]
The letter also threatened to assassinate Fidel Ramos, the President of the Philippines at the time, as well as attack aircraft if the United States did not meet the group's demands. The letter said that the group claiming responsibility was the "Fifth Division of the Liberation Army". [6]
The evidence found at the Doña Josefa filled three police vans. [19]
Sometime after police found Saeed, he had called Ramzi Yousef's cellular phone.
Murad's Confession
Saeed turned out to be Abdul Hakim Murad, who was sent to the apartment to retrieve the computer after the fire. Murad was sent to Camp Crame, a military installation that was on the outskirts of Manila. Murad at first taunted investigators. For sixty-seven days, he endured a torture process that Filipino investigators called "tactical interrogation", or "TI".
According to journalists Marites Vitug and Glenda Gloria, who both wrote the book Under the Crescent Moon, agents hit him with a chair and long piece of wood when Murad didn't talk. They forced water into his mouth, and crushed lighted cigarettes onto his genitals. Murad's ribs were completely cracked. Agents were surprised that he survived. According to an investigator, he finally confessed out of fear of Jews after an agent masqueraded as the Mossad and told him that he was being sent to Israel.
Murad admitted in his interrogations, "This is . . . the best thing. I enjoy it," and "the United States is the first country in this world making trouble for . . . Muslims and for our people."
He went on to talk about the bombs. "Nobody can think that it's . . . explosive," he said, referring to the watches Ramzi Yousef planned to put on the airliners. He said that even if the nitroglycerin was put "in the X-ray, you will never" detect it.
Murad confessed that he was on a quest to be a martyr. He confessed to being the hijacker as part of Phase II of his plan. Murad would later be extradited to the United States on April 12, 1995. His testimony would help convict Yousef.
Manhunt
Wali Khan Amin Shah was arrested at an apartment complex at Singalong Street on January 11, but he escaped on short order 77 hours later. Hambali provided Shah with an alias, "Osama Turkestani". Shah was found to be a conspirator after authorities saw photos of him scanned on the laptop that contained information about the plot, as well as cell phone numbers that led investigators to the apartment. Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed were able to escape from the Philippines to Pakistan. [6]
According to court documents in the 1996 trial, after receiving Murad's phone call, Yousef made plans to leave and flew to Singapore about five hours after Murad's arrest. [23] One day after Bojinka was discovered, Yousef made his way to Pakistan via Thailand. [19] Mohammed went to Pakistan days or weeks afterwards. [19]
The Philippines forwarded details on the Bojinka plot to the United States in April 1995. Konsojaya was heard via wiretaps to be frequently in contact with Mohammed Jamal Khalifa's charitable organization until the plot was discovered.
Yousef would later be arrested in a hotel room in Islamabad, Pakistan on February 7, 1995 after a 23-month manhunt. Yousef later boasted to FBI agent Brian Parr about his plan. Wali Khan Amin Shah, the financier, got picked up in Malaysia in December of 1995. His identity was revealed after he was fingerprinted. Khan also got extradited to the United States.
All three terrorists got life sentences for participating in the plot. Yousef also got 240 years along with his life sentence for the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. Yousef got sentenced on January 8, 1998, and Murad got sentenced on May 16, 1998. Shah has been cooperating with the government since August 1998.
Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, a Saudi businessman from Jeddah that is married to one of Osama Bin Laden's sisters, was in the Philippines earlier in 1994, probably conspiring with Abu Sayyaf. He was arrested in 1994 in Mountain View, California for conspiring in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He was financing the Bojinka plot, according to the content that the Filipino investigators forwarded to the United States. The INS deported Khalifa to Jordan in May 1995. He was acquitted by the Jordanian court and is now in Saudi Arabia.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed decided that explosives were too risky to use in his next terrorist plot. He decided to take Phase III and make it into a new terrorist attack. The leadership of the terrorist organization Al-Qaida, which he belonged to, loved the idea of using airplanes in terrorist attacks. The plot would become known as the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks. Khalid Sheik Mohammed would be arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in 2003.
Those that feel that the U.S. Government could not have discovered the September 11 plot argue that the Bojinka plot was mainly about Phase I.
The end result
U.S. investigators would apparently not find the connection with Khalid Sheik Mohammed to Al Qaida until several years later.Opinions on Operation Bojinka in relation to September 11
People who feel that the United States Government should have discovered September 11 feel that the discovery of Operation Bojinka should have raised early warning flags that would have prevented September 11, pointing to Phases II and III. Some from this side of the argument also feel that the U.S. government should have connected the dots.External links
