Terrorist Target
On June 16, 2004, the 9/11 Commission reported that the original plan for the September 11 attacks called for the hijacking of ten planes, one of which was to be crashed into the building.
On October 6, 2005, House officials stated that the government had foiled a previously undisclosed second plot to crash a plane into the building in mid-2002. In his televised 2006 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush asserted that American counterterrorism officials foiled a plot to fly planes into the tower, which he erroneously identified as “Liberty Tower”. According to President Bush, Al-Qaeda leader Khaled Sheikh Mohammed's plan was to use Asian confederates from Jemaah Islamiyah recruited by Islamic militant Hambali for the hijacking. President Bush asserted the hijackers were going to use shoe bombs to breach the plane's cockpit door. Some counter-terrorism experts have expressed doubt that the plot was ever fully developed or likely to occur.
Read more about this topic: U.S. Bank Tower (Los Angeles)
Famous quotes containing the words terrorist and/or target:
“The terrorist and the policeman both come from the same basket. Revolution, legality—counter-moves in the same game; forms of idleness at bottom identical.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“Well gentlemen, this is it. This is what we’ve been waiting for. Tonight your target is Tokyo. And you’re gonna play ‘em the Star Spangled Banner with two-ton bombs. All you’ve got to do is to remember what you’ve learned and follow your squadron leaders. They’ll get you in, and they’ll get you out. Any questions? All right that’s all. Good luck to you. Give ‘em hell.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)