Al-Qaida timeline: Plots and attacks

Below is an integrated chronology of the public face of al-Qaida, including terror plots and attacks blamed on the loose network and its alleged associate groups, leaders’ public statements, and the U.S. response, including the hunt for, capture or killing of top leaders, beginning in 1992.

PLOTS AND ATTACKS

(Attacks in Iraq blamed on Ansar al Islam and its leader, Abu Musawi al-Zarqawi, can be found in this separate document.)

-- Dec. 29, 1992

In the first al-Qaida attack against U.S. forces, operatives bomb a hotel where U.S. troops -- on their way to a humanitarian mission in Somalia -- had been staying. Two Austrian tourists are killed.  Almost simultaneously, another group of al-Qaida operatives are caught at Aden airport, Yemen, as they prepare to launch rockets at U.S. military planes.  U.S. troops quickly leave Aden.

--Feb. 26, 1993

The first World Trade Center attack and the first terrorist attack on America. A bomb built in nearby Jersey City is driven into an underground garage at the trade center and detonated, killing six and wounding 1,500.  Yousef, nephew of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, masterminds the attack, working with nearly a dozen local Muslims. While U.S. officials disagree on whether Osama bin Laden instituted the attack and Yousef denies he has met bin Laden, the CIA later learns that Yousef stayed in a bin Laden-owned guest house in Pakistan both before and after the attacks.

--April – June 23, 1993

Militants plan a series of near simultaneous bombings in New York.  Among the targets were prominent New York monuments: The Lincoln and Holland tunnels linking New York to New Jersey, the George Washington Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, the United Nations, the last to be planted with the help of diplomats from the Sudanese mission, the Federal Building at 26 Federal Plaza, and finally, one in the Diamond District along 47th Street, populated by mostly Jewish diamond dealers.  On June 23, as terrorists mix chemicals for the bombs, FBI agents raid their warehouse and arrest twelve.

-- May - July 28, 1993

After two months of planning, Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, travels to Karachi, the hometown of Benazir Bhutto, then former prime minister of Pakistan, who is seeking to regain her old job. He and two others are in the process of planting a remote control bomb on the road when the ageing Soviet detonator he obtained in Afghanistan explodes in his face, ending the plot. Financing for the bombing comes from radical Islamic groups in Pakistan, according to Bhutto.

-- June 1993

Al-Qaida reportedly attempts to assassinate then Jordanian Crown Prince Abdullah. He succeeded his father as king of Jordan in February, 1999.

--Oct. 3-4, 1993

In a battle for the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia, a unit of U.S. special operations forces gets pinned down after two U.S. helicopters are shot out of the sky.   Eighteen Americans die, killed by Somalis reportedly trained by al-Qaida.  “It is true that my colleagues fought with [Somali warlord] Farah Adid’s forces in Somalia,” bin Laden subsequently claims. The al-Qaida leader also insists, with a characteristic exaggeration, that 100 Americans died in the attack, not 18. The attack leads to the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia, a move hailed by bin Laden as a great victory for the Islamic world.

--March 11, 1994

Led by Ramzi Yousef, a group of Islamic militants hijack a delivery truck in downtown Bangkok, strangle the driver and load a one-ton bomb on board.  Their target: the Israeli embassy.  But the truck has an accident and the hijacker abandons it, leading to the discovery of the bomb and driver’s body.   Several of the plotters are arrested, but Yousef escapes again.

--June 1994

Imad Mugniyeh, the military chief of Hezbollah during its 1980’s attacks on U.S. personnel, meets secretly with Bin Laden in Khartoum.  Mughniyeh, at that point the most wanted terrorist in the world for his role in the Beirut embassy and Marine Barracks bombing, advises Bin Laden on planning.

Ali Mohamed, the al-Qaida security director at the time, later tells U.S. officials that Mughniyeh told bin Laden how the Marine bombing in Beirut led to the U.S. withdrawal from Lebanon and how such a campaign could eventually lead to a similar route of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and the whole Islamic world.

-- June 20, 1994

Ramzi Yousef, working with the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, blows up the Shrine of Reza, the great grandson of Mohammed and a Shiite saint, in Mashad, Iran.  The explosion took out the entire wall of the mausoleum, killing 26 pilgrims, mostly women. At the time, Yousef was motivated as much by hatred of Shiite Muslims as by hatred of America.  Also involved in the plot were his father and brother.

-- Nov. 12-14, 1994

Extremists working for bin Laden conduct extensive surveillance of President Bill Clinton and his party during a state visit to Manila in anticipation of mounting an assassination attempt when Clinton returns to the Philippine capital in November 1996 for an already scheduled APEC summit.  Bin Laden orders al-Qaida to use still and video cameras to follow Clinton and Secret Service personnel. The Secret Service later learns from an al-Qaida defector that the surveillance was extensive, and the tapes along with maps and notes were sent to bin Laden, who was then living in Sudan. The Secret Service was unaware of the surveillance although there was some concern at the time that the president was exposed during the trip. “We did not know there was a plot to assassinate the president,” said a high-ranking Secret Service official. “We only found out later.”

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