Hamid Gul, Nawaz Sharif, and Osama bin Laden conspire to assassinate Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Husein Haqqani, a Pakistani journalist who claims to have been involved in the plot, will later say that ISI Director Hamid Gul contacted Osama bin Laden, who was then known to provide financial support to Afghan mujaheddin, to pay for a coup/assassination of Bhutto. Gul also brings Nawaz Sharif, then the governor of Punjab province and a rival of Bhutto, into the plot. Bin Laden agrees to provide $10 million on the condition that Sharif transforms Pakistan into a strict Islamic state, which Sharif accepts. [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 193-194] Bhutto is not assassinated at this time, but bin Laden allegedly helps Sharif replace Bhutto one year later (see October 1990).
March 1989: Possibility of Suicide Attacks Using Planes Is ‘Nightmare’ of Governments, Paper Says
Authorities are aware of, and concerned about, the possibility of a suicide attack using a hijacked plane, according to a paper on the threat of terrorism against commercial aviation by Brian Michael Jenkins of the RAND Corporation. “The nightmare of governments is that suicidal terrorists will hijack a commercial airliner and, by killing or replacing its crew, crash into a city or some vital facility,” the paper says. “It has been threatened in at least one case: In 1977, an airliner believed to have been hijacked, crashed, killing all on board. And in 1987, a homicidal, suicidal ex-employee boarded a commercial airliner where he shot his former boss and brought about the crash of the airliner, killing all 44 on board. Fear of such incidents is offered as a powerful argument for immobilizing hijacked aircraft on the ground at the first opportunity and also, some argue, for armoring the flight deck.” The paper asks: “What are we likely to see in the future? Perhaps fewer but deadlier and more sophisticated terrorist hijackings.” [Jenkins, 3/1989, pp. 10-11] The 1987 incident refers to Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771, which is believed to have been hijacked on its way from Los Angeles to San Francisco by a disgruntled former employee. [Time, 12/21/1987] Jenkins will repeat his warning of terrorists possibly using a plane as a weapon in a threat assessment for the New York Port Authority in 1993 (see After February 26, 1993). [Jenkins and Edwards-Winslow, 9/2003, pp. 11 
]
April 25-May 1989: US Holds Secret Meetings with Egyptian Terror Group Headed by ‘Blind Sheikh’
Members of Egyptian militant group Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, whose spiritual head is the ‘Blind Sheikh,’ Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman, hold a series of secret meetings with US officials at the American embassy in Cairo. The meetings are initiated by Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, which wants to co-operate with the US, because it thinks the US is co-operating with and supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. At the meetings, representatives of the group tell the US: 
Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya has between 150,000 and 200,000 members; One of the representatives at the meetings sat on Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya’s shura, or leadership council, between 1981 and 1988. The 11 members of the group’s shura are named at the meetings, as is its operational commander; Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya thinks highly of Saudi Arabian King Fahd, but believes he should take a stronger line against Iran. However, Abdul-Rahman met an Iranian delegation in Pakistan in autumn 1988; The group will not attack US diplomats; Abdul-Rahman travels to the US yearly, and also travels to Britain; The group is not as secret and violent as represented by the Egyptian government and has undergone a “change in thinking,” becoming concerned about its radical and violent image.
Embassy officials are skeptical about some of the claims, as the group’s representatives reveal more than the officials think is prudent. One year after the meetings, Abdul-Rahman will be issued a US visa by a CIA officer and move to the US (see July 1990). [US Embassy in Cairo, 4/25/1989 ; US Embassy in Cairo, 5/3/1989 ]
May 31, 1989: TV Documentary Warns of the Possibility of Terrorists Crashing a Plane into a Building in Washington
Jack Anderson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, warns in a television documentary that terrorists could crash a plane into a landmark building in Washington, DC, such as the Pentagon or the White House. Anderson will later write that in the program he points out “the vulnerability of Washington landmarks to a terrorist attack.” The reasoning behind his warning, he will write, is that Reagan National Airport in Washington is “a greater convenience for terrorists hoping to attack the White House, the Capitol, or the Pentagon.” He notes in the documentary that “a plane could appear to onlookers to be landing at Reagan [National Airport], take a turn, and dive at the most critical seats of government.” The documentary is “created 10 years before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,” Anderson will write, which would mean it is made in 1991. [Meridian Magazine, 9/18/2001; Casa Grande Dispatch, 7/28/2004] However, other accounts indicate that the documentary he will describe is in fact a program broadcast in May 1989, titled “Target USA.” This program includes “a chain of revelations of various plans by terrorist groups within and outside of the US,” according to its producer, Saban Productions. In it, Anderson “spells out what he says is a real threat to the American infrastructure,” according to the Chicago Tribune. He interviews numerous people whose lives have been involved with or affected by terrorism. Referring to the program, Anderson has commented that after spending “trillions and trillions of dollars” to protect itself from “a nuclear holocaust that’s unlikely to occur now,” America has ended up “with a threat that we’re unprepared for, that is underfunded and underplanned and understrategized [for].” [Hollywood Reporter, 7/11/1988; Chicago Tribune, 5/30/1989] The documentary attracts a large national audience. [Meridian Magazine, 9/18/2001] It is one of the “unheeded warnings” before 9/11 “about terrorists flying airliners into buildings,” Anderson will comment. [Casa Grande Dispatch, 7/28/2004]
Summer 1989: Ali Mohamed Uses His US Military Expertise to Train Muslim Radicals
Ali Mohamed, a spy for bin Laden working in the US military, trains Islamic radicals in the New York area. Mohamed is on active duty at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, at the time, but he regularly comes to Brooklyn on the weekends to train radicals at the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, a charity connected to both bin Laden and the CIA. Lawyer Roger Savis will later say, “He came quite often and became a real presence in that [Al-Kifah] office, which later metastasized into al-Qaeda.… He would bring with him a satchel full of military manuals and documents. It was Ali Mohamed who taught the men how to engage in guerrilla war. He would give courses in how to make bombs, how to use guns, how to make Molotov cocktails.” Mohamed’s gun training exercises take place at five different shooting ranges. One series of shooting range sessions in July 1989 is monitored by the FBI (Mohamed apparently is not at those particular sessions in person) (see July 1989). Mohamed’s trainees include most of the future bombers of the World Trade Center in 1993. [Lance, 2006, pp. 47-49]
June 1989: Pakistan Disappointed at End of US Aid over Nuclear Weapons Program
Pakistan is disappointed when Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is told during a visit to Washington that the US will cut off foreign aid to her nation, because of its nuclear weapons program (see June 1989). This new US policy comes about shortly after the withdrawal of the Soviet military from neighboring Afghanistan (see February 15, 1989). A US official will later say: “The Paks understood us better than we understood ourselves… They knew that once the Soviets were whipped in Afghanistan we wouldn’t need them anymore. Would we unilaterally defend Pakistan? Never. Our relationship with Pakistan was to counter the Soviet-Indian relationship. The Pakistanis knew that time was limited. And that’s why they went balls out on the nuclear program.” [New Yorker, 3/29/1993]
June 1989: Bush Administration Decides to Cut Off Aid to Pakistan over Nuclear Weapons Program Next Year
President George Bush and Secretary of State James Baker decide that the US will cut off foreign aid to Pakistan because of its nuclear weapons program. Pakistan was a major recipient of foreign aid during the Soviet Afghan war, when the US channeled support to the mujaheddin through it, but Soviet forces began withdrawing from Afghanistan in February (see February 15, 1989). It is decided that aid will be provided for 1989, but not for 1990 (see October 1990). [New Yorker, 3/29/1993]
June 4, 1989: US-Al-Qaeda Double Agent Ali Mohamed Shows US Military Training Videos to Muslim Radicals
Ali Mohamed, a spy for Osama bin Laden working in the US military, trains Muslim radicals. On this date, he travels with El Sayyid Nosair to the Al-Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn, a charity connected to bin Laden and the CIA, and shows training videos from the Fort Bragg military base where US Special Forces train. A former FBI agent will later comment: “You have an al-Qaeda spy who’s now a US citizen, on active duty in the US Army, and he brings along a video paid for by the US government to train Green Beret officers and he’s using it to help train Islamic terrorists so they can turn their guns on us.… By now the Afghan war is over.” [Lance, 2006, pp. 48] Nosair, who watches the videos, will assassinate a Jewish leader in New York one year later (see November 5, 1990).
July 1989: Ramzi Yousef Already Visits Philippines, Setting Up New Base for Bin Laden
A Philippine government undercover operative later says that bomber Ramzi Yousef comes to the Philippines at this time to set up a new base for bin Laden. The operative, Edwin Angeles, is posing as a member of the militant group the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Angeles will later claim that Yousef approaches him as the “personal envoy” of bin Laden and is looking to set up a new base of operations on the rebellious Muslim island of Mindanao. Bin Laden’s brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa is already in the Philippines setting up charity fronts. These early contacts will contribute to the creation of the Abu Sayyaf, an offshoot of the MILF that Angeles will join. [Philippine Daily Inquirer, 7/10/2001] Yousef had been studying electrical engineering in Wales until 1989. He first went to Afghanistan in 1988 to learn bomb making at a bin Laden camp (see Late 1980s). After graduating, he moved to Afghanistan, where his father, two of his brothers, and his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed are already fighting with bin Laden. [London Times, 10/18/1997] Yousef will frequently return to the Philippines to train and plot attacks (see December 1991-May 1992).
July 1989: FBI Monitors Future Bombers’ Weapons Training Sessions; Fails to Follow Up
FBI agents photograph Islamic radicals shooting weapons at the Calverton Shooting Range on Long Island, New York. The radicals are secretly monitored as they shoot AK-47 assault rifles, semiautomatic handguns, and revolvers for four successive weekends. The use of weapons such as AK-47’s is illegal in the US, but this shooting range is known to be unusually permissive. Ali Mohamed is apparently not at the range but has been training the five men there: El Sayyid Nosair, Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammed Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, and Clement Rodney Hampton-El. Nosair will assassinate Rabbi Meir Kahane one year later (see November 5, 1990) and the others, except Hampton-El, will be convicted of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (see February 26, 1993), while Hampton-El will be convicted for a role in the “Landmarks” bombing plot (see June 24, 1993). Some FBI agents have been assigned to watch some Middle Eastern men who are frequenting the Al-Kifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn. Each weekend, Mohamed’s trainees drive from Al-Kifah to the shooting range and a small FBI surveillance team follows them. The FBI has been given a tip that some Palestinians at Al-Kifah are planning violence targeting Atlantic City casinos. By August, the casino plot will have failed to materialize and the surveillance, including that at the shooting range, will have come to an end. Author Peter Lance will later comment that the reason why the FBI failed to follow up the shooting sessions is a “great unanswered question.” [Lance, 2003, pp. 29-33; New York Times, 10/5/2003]
