User Clip: Douglas MacEachin

Now whether Bin Ladin and his organization had roles in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center and on the thwarted Manila plot to blow up a dozen U.S. commercial aircraft in 1995 remains a matter of substantial uncertainty. Ramzi Yousef, the head -- lead operative in both plots, trained in camps in Afghanistan that were funded by Bin Ladin and used to train many al Qaeda operatives. They also trained operatives from other groups at this camp. Whether Yousef was then or later became a member of al Qaeda remains a matter of debate, but he was at a minimum part of a loose network of Sunni extremists/Islamists who, like Bin Ladin, began to focus their rage on the United States.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who provided some funding for Yousef in the 1993 World Trade Center attack and was his operational partner in the Manila plot, later did join al Qaeda and masterminded the 9/11 attack.

He was not, however, at the time of the Manila plot, a member of al Qaeda. close