2000 millennium attack 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), USS The Sullivans, and the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814.
[2] The plots in Jordan and against LAX were foiled by law enforcement agencies, while the attempted bombing of The Sullivans only failed because the boat filled with explosives sank before detonating.
[8] 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.
[16] Most, including Meskini faced minor charges after no significant terrorism links could be proven, although a main suspected bomb-making accomplice, Abdelmajid Dahoumane had fled the country.
[16] Other suspected targets alleged by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sources included the Seattle Space Needle and Disneyland, California,[21] 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.
[26][27] 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 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.
[36][37][38] 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.
[40][41] 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.
[3] The man behind the LAX plot, Ahmed Ressam, claimed there had been plans by other terrorist cells of millennium attacks "in Europe, in the Gulf, against U.S. and Israel.
[11][12] 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.
The documents were five classified copies of a single report commissioned from Richard A. Clarke, covering internal assessments of the Clinton administration's handling of the plots.
