After February 26, 1993: FBI Experts Conclude that Future Terrorist Attacks May Include Multiple Hijackings

FBI terrorism experts get together and determine that any attacks in the future will likely be on a greater scale than those that have occurred previously, and might include multiple hijackings. At some unspecified time after the World Trade Center is bombed, in February 1993 (see February 26, 1993), Neil Gallagher, chief of the FBI’s counterterrorism section, assembles some of the FBI’s experts to try to imagine what the next terrorist attacks will be like. The experts come to a clear consensus, according to journalist and author Garrett Graff. “Attacks were going to be more spectacular: multiple hijackings, bigger bombs, maybe even a weapon of mass destruction,” he will later write. FBI Special Agent Jack Cloonan will comment on the realization of the threat posed by radical Islamists, saying: “It dawned on everyone after the World Trade Center [bombing] and the Sheikh [Omar Abdul-Rahman] trial. You get the first inclination that there’s a radical Islamic movement that extends far beyond Egypt and the Middle East. It appeared to extend big into the United States. Thousands of people subscribed to these beliefs. This was not just rhetoric from these groups.” [Graff, 2011, pp. 195]