User:Umeboshi/Lost and found/Prior Warnings section

The following was taken from 9/11 Commission Report#Criticism. Please help find a home for it.

Prior Warnings

In the months preceding September 11, the governments of at least four countries — Germany, Egypt, Russia and Israel — are said to have given specific "urgent" warnings to the US of an impending terrorist attack, indicating that hijacked commercial aircraft might well be used to attack targets in the USA. (List of many foreign warnings available [here.) The Egyptian and French warnings to the USA are claimed to have originated from Mossad and German intelligence but were not included in the 9/11 Commission Report.

• German intelligence service BND told both US and Israeli intelligence agencies in June that Middle East terrorists were "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture."
• Egypt sent an urgent warning to the US June 13. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told the French newspaper Le Figaro that the warning was originally delivered just before the G-8 summit in Genoa, and was taken seriously enough that antiaircraft batteries were stationed around the Genoa airport. According to Mubarak, "an airplane stuffed with explosives" was mentioned.
• Russian intelligence notified the CIA during the summer that 25 terrorist pilots had been specifically training for suicide missions. In an interview September 15 with MSNBC, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that he had ordered Russian intelligence in August to warn the US government "in the strongest possible terms" of imminent attacks on airports and government buildings.
• The Israeli Mossad warned FBI and CIA in August that as many as 200 followers of Osama bin Laden were slipping into the country to prepare "a major assault on the United States." The advisory spoke of a "large-scale target," and The Los Angeles Times cites unnamed US officials confirming Mossad's warning had been received.
• The Independent, a liberal daily in Great Britain, published an article asserting the US government "was warned repeatedly that a devastating attack on the United States was on its way." The Independent cited an interview given by Osama bin Laden to a London-based Arabic-language newspaper, al-Quds al-Arabi, in late August. .