2024-03-29 06:20:00
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – On November 23, 1996, Air Force One, the presidential plane carrying then-U.S. President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton, was preparing to land for its destination in Manila. was about to enter. At that time, the presidential guard (Secret Service) who was accompanying him received disturbing information from intelligence agencies. Explosives have been planted along the route of the presidential motorcade from the airport to downtown Manila.
Guards immediately switched to a backup route to the hotel where the Clintons were staying. A plot believed to be by al-Qaeda to assassinate the US president shortly after his arrival for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) annual summit has thus failed.
As the U.S. presidential couple’s motorcade lumbered along a congested alternative route, Philippine security officials discovered that a powerful explosive had been planted on the bridge the motorcade was meant to pass over, as well as a nearby abandoned vehicle. They found an AK-47 Kalashnikov automatic rifle loaded in an SUV (sport utility vehicle). Four retired police officers told Reuters.
The assassination plot was briefly mentioned in books published in 2010 and 2019 as one of al-Qaeda’s earliest attempts to attack the United States.
Eight retired presidential security guards, seven of whom were deployed to Manila at the time of the incident, have provided highly detailed accounts to Reuters about the failed plot.
Reuters could not find any evidence that the U.S. federal government had investigated the plot against Clinton’s life. Reuters also could not independently confirm whether intelligence agencies conducted a secret investigation.
Several former police officers interviewed by Reuters said unanswered questions remain about the Manila incident.
“I have always wondered why I was not ordered to stay in Manila to monitor the progress of the investigation,” said one of the seven police officers who spoke for the first time. Gregory Grodd, who served as the chief intelligence officer for the presidential guard sent to the United States. “He was sent home the day after the president left Manila.”
“There was an incident, but it is still classified,” said Presidential Guard spokesman Anthony Gaglimi. The spokesperson declined to comment on the response the United States had taken, including whether or not it had done so.
We made numerous requests for interviews with former President Clinton through his publicist and the Clinton Foundation, but received no response.
Leon Panetta, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who served as chief of staff in the Clinton administration at the time, said he was not aware of the incident, but said that if there was an attempt to assassinate the president, it must be investigated. talked.
“As a former chief of staff, I’m very concerned. I’m wondering if someone has shelved this information to keep it from coming to the attention of people who should know about what really happened.” That’s where I want to be.”
Under a 1986 law, extremist groups from other countries can be charged with crimes under U.S. criminal law if they attempt to kill U.S. citizens overseas. Prosecution will be carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) with permission from the Attorney General. The attorney general in 1996 was the late Janet Reno.
The FBI declined to comment on the assassination plot in Manila.
Four former U.S. officials, including Thomas Hubbard, then the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines in Manila, acknowledged to Reuters that there had been a failed assassination plot, but the U.S. investigation and subsequent He says he is not aware of the response.
Thirteen years after the death of former leader Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda is in decline. However, a United Nations panel of experts said in a January 29 report that the October 7 attack on Israel by the Islamic group Hamas “invigorated extremist groups’ efforts to recruit new talent within Europe’s Muslim communities.” ”, pointing to al-Qaeda’s propaganda efforts in support of Hamas.
According to Mr. Grodd, a U.S. intelligence agency later reported that the assassination plot was carried out on bin Laden’s orders by al-Qaeda operatives and a Philippine Islamic extremist group said to be under the influence of al-Qaeda. It is said that the decision was made by Abu Sayyaf.
Grodd declined to identify the intelligence agency. Reuters could not confirm this assessment, and the CIA declined to comment.
A 2022 report by the think tank International Crisis Group (ICG) said al-Qaeda was in a state of disarray with only a few living leaders.
The Office of the President of the Philippines, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the National Police did not respond to requests for comment.
Four former presidential security officials interviewed by Reuters said that a few days before Clinton’s visit to Manila in 1994, prisoner Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, was in Manila. He says he was there. The suspect’s uncle, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was the architect of the September 2001 attacks on the United States and also trained Abu Sayyaf fighters.
Youssef was sentenced to life in prison and 240 years in prison, and is serving his sentence at a maximum-security federal prison in Colorado.
The FBI’s first interrogation report of Yousef, a prisoner arrested in 1995, states that Yousef relied on media reports to preview the location in Manila where President Clinton was scheduled to visit. According to the interrogation report, “[Youssef]hinted that he was considering planting an improvised explosive device at a location along the convoy’s route.”
The memo states that Youssef ultimately concluded that security was too tight and there was not enough time for an attack.
Three former presidential guards say that prisoner Youssef may have been preparing for the 1996 attack at this time (in 1994), and that the schedule for the APEC summit was not made public by the end of 1994. point out that it was
“I think (Youssef) was a kind of advance guard,” said Grod, who is familiar with intelligence reports.
Bernard Kleinman, a lawyer for Yousef, told Reuters that it was “unthinkable” that Yousef traveled to Manila in 1994 to launch the failed 1996 plot to assassinate Clinton. “However, it is doubtful whether he was actually involved.” His client, prisoner Youssef, describes him as a braggart who “makes himself look much bigger than he really is.”
Three former security officers say the threat posed by Al Qaeda and Youssef was just one of the concerns for the presidential guard team that arrived first.
Philippine authorities are battling not only Islamic extremism but also communist insurgencies, and in the days before the Clintons’ arrival, police raided Manila airport and a conference center in Subic Bay, site of the APEC summit. They had discovered a bomb. The U.S. State Department warned U.S. diplomats in Manila of the threat the day before the president and his wife arrived.
Grodd told Reuters that Manila was “the worst advance mission I’ve ever had in terms of[threat-related]intelligence.”
Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson, a military adviser who accompanied President Clinton to Manila, said the danger was featured prominently in the president’s top-secret daily briefings before the trip. That’s what it means.
President Clinton arrived in Manila at night.
As Air Force One prepares to land, Daniel Lewis, a member of the presidential guard, reports that an explosive device has been planted on a bridge on the main route to the hotel. communicated to the squad.
Outside the Clintons’ cabin on the plane, Louis Maretti, who was commanding the presidential escort, received a call from an unnamed official working for the U.S. intelligence community talking about a “bridge wedding.” He said he came to the same conclusion after receiving a phone call warning him that he had been wiretapped.
Several years earlier, Maretti, who would later become head of the presidential guard, had come across an intelligence report that identified the wedding as a “terrorist symbol of assassination.” Looking at the planned route of the motorcade, there were three bridges along the main route to the hotel where the Clintons would be staying.
Maretti said he remembers telling Grodd over the wiretap-proof radio, “It’s dangerous. We’re changing the route.” Mr. Grodd also corroborates Mr. Maretti’s recollections regarding this matter.
Maretti, Lewis and Grodd said the bomb intended for Clinton was found on a switchboard on a bridge along its original route. The three men retired from the presidential guard in 1998, 2003, and 2011, respectively.
Reuters footage of President Clinton’s arrival at the scene shows an explosive ordnance disposal team attaching explosives to the side of a power switchboard on the bridge and detonating it. No bombs were found above the switchboard.
Philippine security personnel recovered a red Mitsubishi Pajero that had been abandoned at the opposite end of the bridge, police said. Multiple AK-47 automatic rifles were found inside the vehicle, and it is believed that the perpetrators were planning to use the vehicle to block the bridge and fire at President Clinton’s motorcade.
Grodd and Maretti said they were briefed on the assassination plot by U.S. intelligence officials at the U.S. embassy the next morning and shown photos of the explosives.
The explosives consisted of multiple rifle rounds placed on top of a box filled with TNT gunpowder, and a Nokia mobile phone was used as the detonator. Lewis and Craig Almer, head of the Manila field security team, said they later saw the photo.
Dennis Pulczynski, a former State Department terrorism analyst, said he learned about the failed assassination attempt in 2020 while researching the history of anti-American terrorism. In 1995, President Clinton declared that the United States would “aggressively deter, neutralize, and respond to all terrorist attacks” targeting American citizens at home and abroad, and that those responsible would be “arrested and prosecuted.” He points out that Presidential Order No. 39 has been issued.
In August 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were attacked by suicide bombers by Al Qaeda, killing 220 people, and the Clinton administration finally retaliated with a cruise missile attack.
However, this did not stop bin Laden from planning a new attack.
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