The CIA declassified 71 presidential intelligence reports from 1998-2001 warning of the al-Qaeda threat.

The CIA has declassified 71 presidential intelligence briefings from 1998–2001, revealing warnings about the threat posed by Al-Qaeda* and its plans to attack the United States several years before the September 11 terrorist attacks.

“Today, CIA Director John Ratcliffe declassified 71 documents from daily presidential briefings in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks and in accordance with President Donald Trump’s historical initiative to ensure transparency,” the agency’s press release states.

The press release emphasizes that the declassified documents, totaling more than 100 pages, represent the largest release of CIA analytical materials on the topic of September 11 since the work of the relevant commission in 2004.

The documents show how agency analysts attempted to warn national leadership about impending attacks amid a shortage, incompleteness, and fragmentary nature of available data, the press release notes.

In 2026, it will be 25 years since the largest series of terrorist attacks in U.S. history, which occurred on September 11, 2001. At that time, Al-Qaeda* militants hijacked four passenger airliners. Two passenger planes hijacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001, crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, which subsequently collapsed. Another hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon. The fourth airliner crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The terrorist attacks killed 2,977 people: 2,753 in New York, 184 at the Pentagon, and 40 aboard Flight 93.