A foiled plot to bomb US-bound air planes in Britain bears a striking resemblance to a murderous plan hatched in the Philippines more than a decade ago and uncovered just days before a visit of late Pope John Paul II in 1995.
The 1995 plot, dubbed "Project Bojinka" or "Oplan Bojinka," would have been the first large-scale terrorist attack against commercial passenger air planes using "liquid bombs."
It targeted 11 US-bound airlines that had stopovers in East and Southeast Asia. It was to have been carried out from Jan. 21 to Jan. 22, 1995.
The plot was planned in Manila starting December 1994 by Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and associates Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan Amin Shah.
It was, however, foiled when Murad was arrested in January 1995 after a fire broke out in their rented apartment in downtown Manila, which the three militants had turned into a clandestine bomb factory.
Murad returned to the apartment to retrieve various items left behind, including Yousef's laptop computer and diskettes containing details of Bojinka, but police were already swarming the area and he was caught.
Yousef was arrested in Pakistan one month later, turned over to US custody and was sentenced to life without parole. Shah was caught in Malaysia in December 1995.
According to police, the plan was to use "liquid bombs" made from nitroglycerin to attack the targeted air planes. Digital watches would have been used as timers, 9-volt batteries as power source and light bulb filaments as detonators.
Yousef allegedly tested the plan on Dec. 11, 1994 on a Philippine Airlines flight from Manila to Narita, Japan, with a stopover in the central city of Cebu. He smuggled the nitroglycerin on board by putting it inside a contact lens solution bottle.
After planting the bomb inside the life jacket under a seat of the Boeing 747, Yousef disembarked in Cebu.
A Japanese businessman was killed and 10 other passengers were injured when the bomb exploded inflight. But the plane was able to make an emergency landing in Okinawa.
With the successful test, Yousef planned the attack for 11 flights on US carriers Northwest Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Airlines from various parts of Asia. All flights had a stopover to allow the bombers to disembark after planting the explosives.
The bombers did not need US visas to implement the plot as they only booked through to the stopover destination.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS