2000 millennium attack plots

thumb|[[Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) was a target of the plots.]]

A series of Islamist terrorist attacks linked to al-Qaeda were planned to occur on or near January 1, 2000, in the context of millennium celebrations, including bombing plots against four tourist sites in Jordan, the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), , and the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814.

In Lebanon, dozens were killed in clashes in the Dinnieh district between radical Islamists with connections to the Jordan plots and the Lebanese Army.

Millennium attack plots

Jordan bombing plots

In Jordan, members of the Islamist terror organization al-Qaeda planned to bomb four sites: a fully booked Radisson hotel in Amman, Jordan; the border between Jordan and Israel; a Christian church on Mount Nebo; and a site on the Jordan River where John the Baptist is said to have baptized Jesus. These locations were chosen to target tourists from the United States and Israel.

Jordanian authorities put twenty-eight suspects on trial. Twenty-two of them were quickly found guilty. Six of them, thought to be linked to Osama bin Laden, including Hijazi, were sentenced to death. Abu Zubaydah was sentenced to death in absentia. Luai Sakra and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were sentenced in absentia in 2002 for their part in the plot, which included using poison gas during the bombing.

LAX bombing plot

thumb|[[Ahmed Ressam was arrested on the ferry MV Coho while attempting to cross into the US at Port Angeles.]]

Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian citizen living in Montreal, Canada, confessed after interrogation to having planned to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on New Year's Eve. He was arrested by a U.S. Customs Service inspector at Port Angeles, Washington, a U.S. port of entry, on December 14, 1999. Customs officials found a cache of explosives that could have produced "a blast forty times greater than that of a devastating car bomb" and four timing devices hidden in the spare tire well in the trunk of the rented car in which he had traveled from Canada. Ressam later asserted that the plot was facilitated by Zubaydah and known to bin Laden. and reportedly "questioned hundreds of Muslims from Los Angeles to Boston, wiretapped hundreds of conversations, and put hundreds of individuals under surveillance". Abdelghani Meskini, a known criminal was arrested in Brooklyn, New York on December 30 by Joint Terrorism Task Force for his links to Ressam. In New York and Boston, nine other Algerians linked to Meskini were arrested by the FBI, as part of the largest counter-terrorism operation ever conducted in the United States, dubbed Operation "Borderbom". with maps found with circles around "three California airports—Los Angeles International, Long Beach and Ontario—as well as maps with San Francisco's landmark Transamerica building and Seattle's Space Needle."

Ressam began cooperating with investigators in 2001. He was initially sentenced to 22 years in prison, but in 2010 an appellate court reversed and remanded the case based on procedural errors and recommended that his sentence be extended. He was re-sentenced to 37 years' imprisonment in 2012. Another Algerian-Canadian, Mokhtar Haouari was sentenced to 24 years imprisonment for assisting Ressam in the plot. Abu Doha was indicted for the plot, but was denied extradition from the United Kingdom.

Hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814

Indian Airlines Flight 814, en route from Kathmandu, Nepal to New Delhi, India was hijacked on December 24, 1999, by five militants of the al-Qaeda-linked Harkat-ul-Mujahideen group. The hijackers reportedly told the captain, "Fly slowly, fly carefully, there is no hurry. We have to give India a millennium gift," as a bomb in the cargo room of the plane was timed to go off at midnight, December 31, 1999. The plane eventually landed in Taliban-controlled Kandahar, Afghanistan. On December 31, India agreed to release three captive militants in exchange for the nearly 200 passengers and crew that were being held hostage.

Lebanon and Syria clashes

On December 31, 1999, attacks were launched by a group of up to 300 radical Islamists against Lebanese Army forces in the Dinnieh district in northern Lebanon. The group behind the attack, calling itself after the apocalyptic Takfir wal-Hijra group was led by Bassam Kanj, a close associate of Raed Hijazi who had been indicted for his involvement in the Jordan bombing plots. Kanj had met Hijazi in the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan, and they later worked for the same Boston taxi company in the United States in the 1990s. The fighting lasted for eight days, and killed eleven soldiers, five civilians, and 28 Islamists.

Lebanon being under Syrian occupation at the time, the Lebanon clashes followed clashes in Syria between Syrian security forces and Islamists, some of whom were accused of infiltrating the country from Jordan and Saudi Arabia, that began on December 30 when several Syrian intelligence agents were ambushed and killed. The clashes lasted for four days in Damascus, Homs and nearby villages, and the Hizb ut-Tahrir group claimed that 1,200 of its members had been arrested by January 2000.

USS The Sullivans bombing attempt

On January 3, 2000, in Yemen, members of al-Qaeda attempted to use a boat with explosives to damage the warship while it was refueling in Aden. The attempt failed when the over-loaded, bomb-laden boat sank before detonating.

Jamal Ahmad Mohammad Al Badawi and Fahd al-Quso were charged in absentia in United States district court in 2003 for their alleged roles in several terrorist acts, including the attempted bombing of The Sullivans. In 2011, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, held in Guantanamo, was charged with planning the attack on The Sullivans along with other attacks, facing the death penalty.

Other plots

According to National Security Advisor of the Clinton administration, Sandy Berger, terrorist cells had been disrupted in "eight countries" in the weeks before New Year's Eve, which was said to have "almost certainly" prevented additional attacks.

In anticipation of the turn to the new millennium, official concerns by the FBI and U.S. authorities had focused on purported threats by "apocalyptic" religious or political groups, claimed to include lone wolf white supremacists, Christian apocalyptic cults or radical elements of militia organizations.

Aftermath

Investigation

While in prison, Ressam revealed that al-Qaeda sleeper cells existed within the United States. This information was included in the President's Daily Brief delivered to President George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, entitled Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US.

FBI special agent and counter-terrorism chief John P. O'Neill, who had been central in the investigation of al-Qaeda in the late 1990s and the millennium plot, and subsequently suspected the existence of sleeper cells in the United States, died in the September 11 attacks in 2001 as head of security of the World Trade Center. O'Neill had started his new job on August 23 less than a month before the attack, after he had been squeezed out of the bureau.

Attacks

After the unsuccessful attack on USS The Sullivans, al-Qaeda attempted the same type of attack for a second time, again in Aden, Yemen. They successfully bombed on October 12, 2000, in an attack that claimed the lives of seventeen U.S. sailors.

References

External links

"2000 Millennium Bomb Plots", collection of articles in The New York Times
"Trail of a Terrorist", about Ahmed Ressam and millennium attack plots by PBS Frontline