They planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II; blow up 11 airliners in flight from Asia to the United States, with the goal of killing approximately 4,000 passengers and shutting down air travel around the world; and crash a plane into the headquarters of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Langley, Virginia.

Elements of the Bojinka plot (including the plan to crash a plane into the CIA headquarters) would be used in the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, six years later.

[3] Several news media outlets, including Time Asia,[4] incorrectly stated that the word Bojinka means "loud bang" or "explosion" in the Serbo-Croatian language.

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 KFC restaurant.

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.

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.

Although Yousef thought of several ways to kill the president, including placing nuclear bombs on Clinton's motorcade route,[citation needed][dubious – discuss] firing a Stinger missile at Air Force One or the presidential limousine, launching theater ballistic missiles at Manila, and killing him with phosgene, a chemical weapon, he decided against this, reasoning the plan to be too difficult.

She also revealed that they double-locked the door when they were inside or out, and never asked for a cleaning crew to clear up the room, also adding that they "had chemical burns on their hands", carried boxes, and never hired other people to help them.

Following this incident, Yousef booked the Manila-Cebu leg of the Narita-bound Philippine Airlines Flight 434 under the alias Armaldo Forlani using a forged Italian passport.

The bomb exploded while the aircraft was over Japan's Minamidaitō Island, part of Okinawa Prefecture, killing Haruki Ikegami, a Japanese businessman occupying the seat; an additional 10 passengers were injured.

On January 15, 1995, a suicide bomber would dress up as a priest, while John Paul II passed in his motorcade on his way to the San Carlos Seminary in Makati.

)[9] The "Mark II microbombs" had Casio digital watches as the timers, stabilizers that looked like cotton wool balls, and an undetectable quantity of nitroglycerin as the explosive.

[6][10][11] Yousef got batteries past airport security during his December 11 test bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434 by hiding them in hollowed-out heels of his shoes.

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, as they knew testing them in a house or apartment was dangerous, and could easily give away the terrorist plot.

The World Trade Center (New York City, New York), The Pentagon (Arlington, Virginia), the United States Capitol (Washington, D.C.), the White House (Washington, D.C.), the Sears Tower (Chicago, Illinois), the U.S. Bank Tower (Los Angeles, California) and the Transamerica Pyramid (San Francisco, California) would have been the likely targets.

In his confession to Filipino investigators, prior to the foiling of Operation Bojinka, Abdul Hakim Murad said that this part of the plot was dropped since the Manila cell could not recruit enough people to implement other hijackings.

According to the initial accounts of the Philippine authorities, Abdul Hakim Murad started a chemical fire in the kitchen sink in Room 603 on the sixth floor of the Doña Josefa apartment by pouring water on a substance.

[citation needed] Police Major Francisco F. Bautista and his staff, including watch commander Aida D. Fariscal, decided to investigate the situation and saw 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.

[7] Fariscal had been suspicious of the men in Room 603 due to the recent wave of bombings (committed by Yousef) that hit Metro Manila and Philippine Airlines Flight 434.

A 2002 Los Angeles Times article stated that the police deliberately set a fire to rouse the men out of their apartment.

This collection of objects, and a phone message from a tailor reminding the occupant that "the cassock was ready to be tried on", along with the fact of the Pope's impending visit, was enough for Police Major Francisco F. Bautista to infer that an assassination plot had been interrupted.

The apartment also contained a chemistry textbook and chemical dictionary, a Time magazine with the cover story on international terrorism,[6][8] as well as a pharmacy receipt and bottle of contact lens solution.

[6] Yousef's project was discovered on four floppy disks and an off-white Toshiba laptop inside his apartment, two weeks before the plot would have been implemented.

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.

The letter also said that the bombers claimed to have the "ability to make and use chemicals and poisonous gas ... for use against vital institutions and populations and the sources of drinking water.

"[6] The letter also threatened to assassinate Fidel V. Ramos, then-President of the Philippines, as well as attack aircraft if the United States did not meet the group's demands.

According to journalists Marites Dañguilan Vitug and Glenda M. Gloria, authors of the book Under the Crescent Moon: Rebellion in Mindanao, agents hit Murad with a chair and club of wood when he did not talk.

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.

Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, a Saudi businessman from Jeddah who was married to one of Osama bin Laden's sisters, was in the Philippines earlier in 1994.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard the case on May 3, 2002, and announced on April 3, 2003 the decision that Yousef and his partners were to remain incarcerated.