US President George W. Bush on Thursday detailed a foiled terror attack on Los Angeles, California, in 2002, in which al Qaeda had planned to hijack an airplane and hit the city's tallest building.
The details were the first from the Bush administration about the plot, which was thwarted in 2002 and initially disclosed by the White House last year.
The plot was set in motion by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and involved terrorists from al Qaeda's Southeast Asia wing, Jemaah Islamiyah, Bush said in a speech designed to highlight progress in the global war on terror.
Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003.
Bush said the plotters planned to use shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door and hijack the plane.
Al Qaeda's Southeast Asia leader, known as Hambali, had recruited Jemaah Islamiyah operatives for the plot, he said.
Hambali was arrested in 2003 in Thailand, five months after Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan.
The purported plot was one of 10 on a list first released by the White House in October.
The intended target of the attack was a building then known as the Library Tower.
It was renamed the US Bank Tower in 2003 and, at 1,018 feet, is the tallest building in LA and all areas west of the Mississippi River. It is among the 25 tallest buildings in the world.
In the speech, Bush credited international cooperation in the war on terrorism with saving American lives.
"The LA plot shows we face a relentless and determined enemy that requires unprecedented cooperation from other nations," he said. "By working together, we stopped a catastrophic attack."
However, two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, and Dianne Feinstein questioned the timing and the details of Bush's revelation.
"It may be that they're tired of talking about the Brooklyn Bridge (terror plot), and they're trying to find a different edifice of some sort," Rockefeller said.
Added Feinstein, "All I'm saying is that's not a new revelation and I've never seen anything that indicated whether the second wave was bona fide or not."
(Xinhua News Agency February 10, 2006)
