CIA releases secret reports before 9/11 - warnings about Al-Qaeda years before

On the 25th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the US secret service CIA released previously classified reports from the three years before the attacks. Seventy CIA reports to former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were published on Friday. They show again that agents warned about the terrorist network Al-Qaeda and its founder Osama bin Laden years before the attacks. However, this information was "sparse, vague and incomplete," the CIA said.

A September 10, 1998, report to Clinton said al-Qaeda "could fly a plane loaded with explosives into a U.S. city." Another report from December 4, 1998 stated that bin Laden and his allies were preparing attacks in the United States, "including the hijacking of a plane."

The documents that have now been released are partially blacked out to protect informants. As early as 2004, a commission set up by President George W. Bush had certified that the CIA's foreign intelligence service had failed, including inadequate information being passed on to the FBI Federal Police about terrorist suspects.

Relatives demand investigations

On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda members in the USA hijacked passenger planes and piloted them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth plane, apparently intended to hit the Capitol or the White House, crashed in a field because passengers fought back. A total of 2,977 people died. The victims of the terrorist attack will be remembered in several commemorations in New York this weekend.