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The Bojinka plot (Arabic: بجنكة‎; Tagalog: Oplan Bojinka) was a planned large-scale Islamist attack by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to blow up 12 airliners^[1] and their approximately 4,000 passengers that would have flown from Asia to the United States.

The term also refers to a combination of plots by Yousef and Mohammed to take place in January 1995, including a plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II. Murad's proposal was to crash a plane into the CIA's headquarters in Fairfax County, Virginia, in addition to the plan to bomb multiple aeroplanes.^[2]

Ramzi Yousef

Despite careful planning and the skill of Ramzi Yousef, the Bojinka plot was disrupted after a chemical fire drew the Philippine National Police's (PNP) attention on January 6 and January 7, 1995. Yousef set off test bombs in a mall and theater, injuring scores of people, and one person was killed in the course of the plot — a passenger seated near a nitroglycerin bomb on Philippine Airlines Flight 434, which could have caused enough damage to lose the entire plane. The money handed down to the plotters originated from Al-Qaeda.

Terminology and etymology[link]

The plot is also known as Oplan Bojinka, Operation Bojinka, Project Bojinka, and Bojinga. FBI officials dub it "48 hours of terror".^[3]

Several media outlets, including Time Asia,^[4] falsely observed that the word Bojinka means "loud bang" or "explosion" in Serbo-Croatian language. In Croatia, "bočnica"^[5] translates into English as "boom" but with a meaning unrelated to "explosion" or "bang". The most intriguing meaning of Bojinka gives Russian word "боженька" sometimes transcribed as "божинька": this is a derogatory^{[citation needed]} term used by so called 'militant atheists'^{[citation needed]} in Russia for "God".

Endnote 7 of Chapter 5 of the 9/11 Commission Report states that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claims that "Bojinka" is "a nonsense word he adopted after hearing it on the front lines in Afghanistan."

Financing[link]

The money that funded the Bojinka Plot came from Osama bin Laden and Hambali, and from front organizations operated by Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden's brother-in-law.

Wali Khan Amin Shah, an Afghan, was the financier of the plot. He funded the plot by laundering money through his girlfriend and other Manila women, several of whom were bar hostesses and one of whom was an employee at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. They were bribed with gifts and holiday trips so that they would open bank accounts to stash funds.

The transfers were small, equivalent to about 12,000 to 24,000 Philippine pesos (500 to 1,000 US$), and would be handed over each night at a Wendy's or a karaoke bar. The funds went to "Adam Sali", an alias used by Ramzi Yousef. The money came through a Filipino bank account owned by Syrian Omar Abu Omar, who worked at International Relations and Information Centre, an Islamic organization run by Mohammed Jamal Khalifa.^[6]

A company called Konsojaya also provided financial assistance to the Manila cell by laundering money to it. Konsojaya was a front company that was started by the head of the group Jemaah Islamiyah, an Indonesian named Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali. Wali Khan Amin Shah was on the board of directors of the company.

Planning of Oplan Bojinka[link]

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The Philippines: the operating base for Bojinka

As soon as Yousef arrived in Manila along with other "Arab Afghans" that were making cells in Manila, he started to work on making bombs. Yousef had shown up in Singapore with Khan earlier in fall 1994. The two got their Philippine visas in Singapore.^{[citation needed]}

He left Manila for several days, but was met by Islamist emissaries upon his return to Metro Manila. They asked him to attack United States President Bill Clinton, who was due to arrive in the Philippines on November 12, 1994 as part of a five-day tour of Asia. Yousef thought of several ways to kill the president, including placing nuclear bombs on Clinton's motorcade route, firing a Stinger missile at Air Force One or the presidential limousine, launching theater ballistic missiles at Manila and or killing him with phosgene, a chemical weapon. He abandoned the idea, as it would be too difficult to kill the President. However, he incorporated his plan to kill the Pope into the Bojinka plot.^{[citation needed]}

In 1994, Yousef and Khalid Sheik Mohammed started testing airport security. Yousef booked a flight between Kai Tak International Airport in Hong Kong and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport near Taipei. Mohammed booked a flight between Ninoy Aquino International Airport near Manila and Kimpo International Airport near Seoul. The two had already converted fourteen bottles of contact lens solution into bottles containing nitroglycerin, which was readily available in the Philippines. Yousef had taped to the arch of his foot a metal rod, which would serve as a detonator. The two wore jewelry and clothing with metal to confuse airport security. To support their claim that they were meeting women, they packed condoms in their bags.^[7]

On December 8, Yousef moved into the Doña Josefa Apartments under the alias Najy Awaita Haddad and purported himself to be a Moroccan. Edith Guerrera, the manager, laughed with the receptionist after the two men asked for new registration forms. "Perhaps they have forgotten their names", she said as the first ones were torn up. Yousef had accidentally put his "real name" on the first form. He did not want to get discovered too early.^[6][8]

Yousef had booked Room 603 in advance. He had made an Php 80,000 (Philippine peso) deposit, and added Php 40,000 more up front before taking the elevator to Room 603.^[8]

A conspirator named Abdul Hakim Murad came to Manila with Yousef and stayed at the same apartment.

The apartments are located in the Malate district, 200 meters away from the embassy of the Holy See in the Philippines, and 500 meters down the street from Manila Police Station No. 9 on Quirino Avenue. One of the windows at Suite 603 looks down on the path that the Papal motorcade was to take.^[6]

People were suspicious of the men in Room 603. The men renting the apartment were very secretive. According to Guerrera, "They gave me the impression that they were here to study", said Mrs. Guerrera. "They looked like students. They double locked the door when they were inside or out. They didn't ask the room boy to clear up the room." The men, who had chemical burns on their hands, were carrying boxes and never hired other people to carry them up. The boxes contained chemicals bought from suppliers in Manila and Quezon City in Metro Manila. Yousef would use these to make his bombs.^[8][9]

Mohammed purported himself to be a Saudi or Qatari plywood exporter named Abdul Majid. Yousef and Mohammed had already started planning Operation Bojinka.^[9]

According to Abdul Hakim Murad, Yousef got an idea for crashing a plane into the CIA from Murad while at the apartments. According to Murad, Yousef replied, "OK, we will think about it", before heading off with Khalid Shaikh to Puerto Galera for scuba diving.

Test bombs: mall, theater, 747 airliner[link]

His first operational test of his bomb was inside a mall in Cebu City. The bomb detonated several hours after Yousef put it in a generator room. It caused minor damage, but it proved to Yousef that his bomb was workable.^{[citation needed]}

On December 1, Shah placed a bomb under a seat in the Greenbelt Theatre in Manila to test what would happen if a bomb exploded under an airline seat. The bomb went off, injuring several patrons.^[8]

On December 11, 1994, Yousef built another bomb, which had one tenth of the power that his final bombs were planned to have, in the lavatory of an aircraft. He left it inside the life jacket under his seat (26 K) and got off the plane when it arrived in Cebu. Yousef had boarded the flight under the assumed name of Arnaldo Forlani, using a false Italian passport. The aircraft was Philippine Airlines Flight 434 on a Manila to Narita route, stopping partway at Cebu. Yousef had set the timer for four hours after he got off the aircraft.

Aftermath of fatal airliner bombing

The bomb exploded while the aircraft was over Minami Daito Island, near Okinawa, Japan. A Japanese businessman named Haruki Ikegami occupying the seat was killed and an additional 10 passengers were injured. The flight was carrying 273 passengers in total. The blast blew a hole in the floor and the cabin's rapid decompression severed several control cables in the ceiling, cutting off control of the plane's right aileron, as well as both the pilot and first officer's steering controls. Usually, 26K, the seat that he chose to plant the bomb was positioned directly over the centre fuel tank, and the detonation of the bomb would have caused a crippling explosion, but on this particular "SAS" model, the seat was two rows forward from normal. The flight crew kept control of the Boeing 747-200 and brought it into an emergency landing in Naha, Okinawa. Satisfied with the deadly results of the attack, Yousef then planned which flights to attack for Phase I.

Phase I[link]

The details of Phase I were found in the evidence discovered in the investigation into Room 603 in the Doña Josefa.

If Phase I of the plot had been pulled off, it would have been, in terms of casualties, the most devastating Islamist terrorist attack in recent history.

Pope assassination plot[link]

The first plan was to kill Pope John Paul II when he visited the Philippines during the World Youth Day 1995 celebrations. On January 15, 1995, a suicide bomber would dress up as a priest, while John Paul II passed in his motorcade on his way to the San Carlos Seminary in Makati City. The assassin planned to get close to the Pope, and detonate the bomb. The planned assassination of the Pope was intended to divert attention from the next phase of the operation. About 20 men had been trained by Yousef to carry out this act prior to January 1995.

Airline bombing plot[link]

The next plan would have involved at least five terrorists, including Yousef, Khan, Shah, and two more unknown operatives. Starting on January 21, 1995, and ending on January 22, 1995, they would set the bombs on 11 United States-bound airliners that had stopovers all around East Asia and Southeast Asia. All of the flights had two legs. The bombs would be planted inside life jackets under seats on the first leg, when each bomber would disembark. He would then board one or two more flights and repeat. After all of the bombers planted bombs on all of the flights, each man would then catch flights to Lahore, Pakistan. The men never needed U.S. visas, as they only would have been on the planes for their first legs in Asia.

United States airlines had been chosen instead of Asian airlines so as to maximize the shock toward Americans. The flights targeted were listed under operatives with codenames: "Zyed", "Majbos", "Markoa", "Mirqas" and "Obaid". Obaid, who was really Abdul Hakim Murad, was to hit United Flight 80, and then he was to go back to Singapore on another United flight which he would bomb.^[6][8][10]

Zyed, probably Ramzi Yousef, was to hit Northwest Flight 30, a United Flight going from Taipei to Honolulu, and a United Flight going from Bangkok to Taipei to San Francisco^[6][11]

The bombs would have been timed before the operatives stepped off the planes. The aircraft would have blown up over the Pacific Ocean and the South China Sea almost simultaneously. If this plan worked, several thousand would have perished, and air travel would have been shut down worldwide for days, if not weeks. The U.S. government estimated the prospective death toll to be about 4,000 if the plot had been executed. (For comparison, about 3,000 were killed during the September 11 attacks in the United States.)

Bomb[link]

The "Mark II" "microbombs" had Casio digital watches as the timers, stabilizers that looked like cotton wool balls, and an undetectable quantity of nitroglycerin as the explosive. Other ingredients included glycerin, nitrate, sulfuric acid, and minute concentrations of nitrobenzene, silver azide (silver trinitride), and liquid acetone. Two 9-volt batteries in each bomb were used as a power source. The batteries would be connected to light bulb filaments that would detonate the bomb. Murad and Yousef wired an SCR (silicon controlled rectifier) as the switch to trigger the filaments to detonate the bomb. There was an external socket hidden when the wires were pushed under the watch base as the bomber would wear it. The alteration was so small that the watch could still be worn in a normal manner.^[6][10][12]

Yousef got batteries past airport security during his December 11 test bombing of Philippine Airlines Flight 434 by hiding them in hollowed-out heels of his shoes. Yousef smuggled the nitroglycerin on board by putting it inside a small container, reputedly containing contact lens cleaning solution.^[13]

Airports planned to be targeted[link]

Asia[link]

• Hong Kong (Kai Tak) International Airport, Hong Kong
• New Tokyo International Airport, Narita, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, near Tokyo
• Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Pasay City/Parañaque City, National Capital Region, Philippines, near Manila
• Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan, near Taipei, Taiwan
• Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore
• Gimpo International Airport, Gimpo, South Korea (Now a part of Seoul)
• Bangkok (Don Mueang) International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand

United States[link]

• Honolulu International Airport, Honolulu, Hawaii
• John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York City, New York
• Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles
• O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois
• San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco

Targeted flights[link]

• Dennis Piszkiewicz, author of Terrorism's War with America: A History, said that "Zyed" was probably the codename of Ramzi Yousef. "Zyed" was to attack a Northwest Airlines Manila-Seoul-Los Angeles flight, then a United Airlines Seoul-Taipei-Honolulu flight, and then a United Taipei-Bangkok-San Francisco flight. Zyed would then flee to Karachi, Pakistan.^[14]
• "Majbos" was to attack a United Airlines Taipei-Tokyo-Los Angeles flight, with him disembarking in Tokyo, and then proceed to a United Tokyo-Hong Kong-New York flight. After disembarking in Hong Kong, he would have fled to Karachi, Pakistan.^[14]
• "Maroka" was to attack a Northwest Airlines Manila-Tokyo-Chicago flight, with him disembarking in Tokyo, and then proceed to a Northwest Tokyo-Hong Kong-New York flight. After disembarking in Hong Kong he would have escaped to Karachi^[14]
• "Mirqas" was to attack a United Airlines Manila-Seoul-San Francisco flight, with him disembarking in Seoul, and then proceed to a Delta Air Lines Seoul-Taipei-Bangkok flight. After disembarking in Taipei he would have escaped to Karachi^[15]
• "Obaida" was to attack a United Singapore-Hong Kong-Los Angeles flight and a United Los Angeles-Hong Kong-Singapore flight which would become a Singapore-Hong Kong-San Francisco flight. After arriving in Singapore, Obaida was to flee to Pakistan^[14]

Phase II, CIA plane crash plot[link]

Abdul Hakim Murad confessed details of Phase II in his interrogation by the Manila police after his capture.

Phase two would have involved Murad either renting, buying, or hijacking a small airplane, preferably a Cessna. The airplane would be filled with explosives. He would then crash it into the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in the Langley area in Fairfax County, Virginia. Murad had been trained as a pilot in North Carolina, and was slated to be a suicide pilot.

There were alternate plans to hijack a 12th commercial airliner and use that instead of the small aircraft, probably due to the Manila cell's growing frustration with explosives. Testing explosives in a house or apartment is dangerous, and it can easily give away a terrorist plot. Khalid Sheik Mohammed probably made the alternate plan.

A report from the Philippines to the United States on January 20, 1995 stated, "What the subject has in his mind is that he will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger. Then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at the CIA headquarters."

Another plot the men were cooking up would have involved hijacking of more airplanes. The Sears Tower (Chicago, Illinois), The Pentagon (Arlington County, Virginia), the United States Capitol (Washington, D.C.), the White House (Washington, DC), the Transamerica Pyramid (San Francisco, California), and the World Trade Center (New York City, New York) would be the likely targets. This plot eventually would be the base plot for the September 11, 2001 attacks, only hitting the World Trade Center (which was destroyed) and The Pentagon (which suffered partial damage).

In his confession with Filipino investigators, Abdul Hakim Murad said that the Manila cell could not recruit enough people to implement other hijackings prior to the foiling of Oplan Bojinka.

Discovery and termination of Oplan Bojinka[link]

All times mentioned are Manila, Philippines standard time. (UTC+8)

The plot was abandoned after an apartment fire at the six-story Doña Josefa apartments occurred in Manila, Philippines, on the evening of Friday, January 6, 1995. The fire occurred before Pope John Paul II was scheduled to visit the Philippines on January 12.

Initially, the story told by Philippine authorities was that the fire was started when Abdul Hakim Murad started a chemical fire in the kitchen sink in Suite 603 in the 6th floor of the Doña Josefa apartment by pouring water on a substance. The fire was spotted at about 11 pm after residents complained about a strange odour. Edith Guerrera, the owner of the apartments, called the fire brigade, but the fire went out unassisted. Yousef and Murad had told the firefighters to stay away before they fled.^[16] Police, including 55-year-old female watch commander Aida D. Fariscal, who decided to investigate the situation, first found four hot plates in their packing crates, what looked like cotton batting soaked in a beige solution, and loops of green, red, blue, and yellow electrical wiring. The telephone rang, and the police ran downstairs, thinking that it was a trap.^[7] Fariscal had been suspicious of the men in room 603 due to the recent wave of bombings (committed by Yousef) that hit Metro Manila, and Philippine Airlines Flight 434. Seeking an arrest warrant, they left and asked 11 judges before finding one that would grant her a search warrant. She, along with a group of investigators and police then uncovered evidence, before arresting a suspect who called himself Ahmed Saeed. She refused to let go of a suspect, who turned out to be Abdul Hakim Murad, after he offered her 110,740 Philippine pesos (US$2,000).

A 2002 Los Angeles Times article stated that the police deliberately set a fire to rouse the men out of their apartment.^[17]

After police discovered the evidence, they arrested a man who called himself Ahmed Saeed. Saeed said that he was a commercial pilot who was on his way to the precinct house to explain what he claimed to be firecrackers that had gone off. Saeed tried to run away, but he was arrested after he tripped over a tree root. He was hauled to the precinct in a taxi van with the help of two other people. Saeed offered 110,740 Philippine pesos (US$2,000) to the policemen if they would agree to let him go, but the officers refused.^[7] At the precinct, Saeed signed a statement saying that he was innocent and that he was a tourist visiting his friend in his chemical import/export business. Saeed then mumbled about "two Satans that must be destroyed: the Pope and America."^[6]

Fariscal was later depicted in the 2006 docudrama The Path to 9/11, in which US agencies in the script gave her much credit, although by a much younger actress. An actress portrays her in the Mayday (Air Emergency, Air Crash Investigation) episode "Bomb on Board." The widow of a slain police officer, she had spent seventeen years as a homemaker before enrolling in the police department in 1977. She became well known in her home nation which awarded her the equivalent of 33,222 pesos ($700) and a trip to Taiwan. The CIA awarded her a certificate reading "in recognition of your personal outstanding efforts and co-operation." Her decision to investigate the fire was key to disrupting the plot and forcing Yousef to flee.

Evidence in Room 603[link]

When the officers returned to Suite 603 at 2:30 am on January 7, they found: street maps of Manila with routes plotting the papal motorcade, a rosary, a photograph of the pontiff, bibles, crucifixes, papal confessions, and priest clothing, including robes and collars. This collection of objects, and a phone message from a tailor reminding the occupant that 'the cassock was ready to be tried on', along with the fact of the Pope's impending visit, was enough for the chief inspector to infer that an assassination plot had been interrupted. A search warrant was granted by 4 am on January 7.^[6][8]

More chemicals, such as gallons of sulfuric, picric, and nitric acid, pure glycerin, acetone, sodium trichlorate, nitrobenzoyl, ammonia, silver nitrates, methanamine, and ANFO were found. Several cans of gasoline and two large Welch's grape juice bottles containing nitroglycerin were found. Equipment such as thermometers, graduated cylinders, large cooking kettles, funnels, fuses, filters, soldering irons, beakers, mortars, pestles, different electronic fusing systems, timers, switches, and circuit breakers were found. Also discovered in the search was a finished remote control brass pipe bomb, as well as another pipe bomb that was about to be packed. The apartment also contained a chemistry textbook and chemical dictionary, a TIME magazine with the cover story on international terrorism,^[6][8][9] as well as a pharmacy receipt and bottle of contact lens solution. In a cupboard under the sink a finished time bomb and other Casio watches were found.

The most conclusive piece of evidence found was a manual written in Arabic on how to build a liquid bomb.

Stacks of 12 false passports, including Norwegian, Afghan, Saudi, and Pakistani were also found in the apartment. Investigators found a business card from Mohammed Jamal Khalifa; Saeed apparently possessed five telephone numbers from Khalifa. Investigators also found phone numbers for Rose Masquera, Mohammed's girlfriend.^[6]

Yousef's computer[link]

Yousef's project was discovered on four floppy disks and an off-white Toshiba laptop inside his apartment, two weeks before the plot would have been implemented. Several encrypted files on the hard drive contained flight schedules, calculations of detonation times, and other items.^[18] The first string of text in one of the files states, "All people who support the U.S. government are our targets in our future plans and that is because all those people are responsible for their government's actions and they support the U.S. foreign policy and are satisfied with it. We will hit all U.S. nuclear targets. If the U.S. government keeps supporting Israel, then we will continue to carry out operations inside and outside the United States to include..." and the text ends.

A file named "Bojinka" lists the 11 flights between Asia and the United States, which were grouped under five codenames. Strings were found, such as "SETTING: 9:30 pm to 10:30 pm TIMER: 23HR. BOJINKA: 20:30-21:30 NRT Date 5" (for United flight 80), and "SETTING: 8:30-9:00. TIMER: 10HR. BOJINKA: 19:30-20:00 NRT Date 4" (for Northwest Flight 30).^[6]

The laptop had names of dozens of associates, including some photographs of a few of them and including contact information for Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. They contained records of information about five-star hotels, dealings with a London trading corporation, a meat market owner in Malaysia, and an Islamic center in Tucson, Arizona. Information about how money moved through an Abu Dhabi banking firm was found.

A communication signed "Khalid Shaikh + Bojinka" was also found on Yousef's computer that threatened to attack targets "in response to the financial, political and military assistance given to the Jewish state in the occupied land of Palestine by the United States Government." The letter also said that the bombers claimed to have "ability to make and use chemicals and poisonous gas... for use against vital institutions and populations and the sources of drinking water."^[6][8]

The letter also threatened to assassinate Fidel V. Ramos, the President of the Philippines at the time, as well as attack aircraft if the United States did not meet the group's demands. The letter said that the group claiming responsibility was the "Fifth Division of the Liberation Army".^[6]

The evidence found at the Doña Josefa filled three police vans.^[9]

Murad's confession[link]

Sometime after police arrested Saeed, he had called Ramzi Yousef's cellular phone.

Saeed turned out to be Abdul Hakim Murad, who was sent to the apartment to retrieve the computer after the fire. Murad was sent to Camp Crame, the headquarters of the Philippine National Police. Murad at first taunted investigators. For sixty-seven days, he endured "tactical interrogation" by Filipino investigators.

According to journalists Marites Vitug and Glenda Gloria, authors of the book Under the Crescent Moon, agents hit Murad with a chair and club of wood when he did not talk. They forced water into his mouth, and crushed out lit cigarettes on his genitals. Murad's ribs were completely cracked. Agents were surprised that he survived. According to an investigator, he finally confessed out of fear of Jews after an agent masquerading as a member of the Mossad told him that he was being sent to Israel.

Murad admitted in his interrogations, "This is my — the best thing. I enjoy it", and "because the United States is the first country in this world making trouble for us, for Muslims and for our people."

He talked about the bombs. "Nobody can think that it's... explosive", he said, referring to the watches Ramzi Yousef planned to put on the airliners. He said that the nitroglycerin "which even if you'll put in the X-ray, you will never, nobody can" detect it.

Murad confessed that he was on a quest to be a martyr. He confessed to being the hijacker as part of Phase II of his plan. Murad was extradited to the United States on April 12, 1995. His testimony helped convict Yousef.

Manhunt[link]

Wali Khan Amin Shah was arrested at an apartment complex on January 11 after police saw that a pager called by Yousef was registered in the name of Shah's girlfriend. Shah escaped from custody about 77 hours later. Shah was found to be a conspirator after authorities saw photos of him scanned on the laptop that contained information about the plot, as well as cell phone numbers that led investigators to the apartment. Yousef and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed were able to escape from the Philippines to Pakistan.^[6][8]

After receiving Murad's phone call, Yousef made plans to leave and flew to Singapore about five hours after Murad's arrest. One day after Bojinka was discovered, Yousef made his way to Pakistan.^[9] Mohammed went to Pakistan days or weeks afterwards.^[8][9]

The Philippines forwarded details on the Bojinka plot to the United States in April 1995. Konsojaya was heard via wiretaps to be frequently in contact with Mohammed Jamal Khalifa's charitable organization until the plot was discovered.

Islamabad guesthouse where Yousef was captured in February 1995.

Yousef was arrested in the Su-Casa guest house in Islamabad, Pakistan on February 7, 1995 after a 23-day manhunt. Yousef later boasted to [Secret Service] agent Brian Parr about his plan. Wali Khan Amin Shah, the financier, was picked up in Malaysia in December 1995. His identity was revealed after he was fingerprinted. Khan was also extradited to the United States.

All three conspirators got life sentences for participating in the plot. Yousef also got 240 years along with his life sentence for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Yousef was sentenced on January 8, 1998, and Murad was sentenced on May 16, 1998. Shah has been cooperating with the government since August 1998.

Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, a Saudi businessman from Jeddah who was married to one of Osama bin Laden's sisters, was in the Philippines earlier in 1994. He was arrested in 1994 in Mountain View, California, for conspiring in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He was financing the Bojinka plot, according to the content that the Filipino investigators forwarded to the United States. The United States Immigration and Naturalization Service deported Khalifa to Jordan in May 1995. He was acquitted by the Jordanian court and moved to Saudi Arabia. He was murdered in his hotel room in January 2007 in Madagascar.

End result[link]

U.S. investigators would apparently not find the connection with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to Al Qaeda until several years later.

The 9–11 attacks evolved from the original Bojinka plot

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed decided that explosives were too risky to use in his next plot. He decided instead to use airplanes. The plot would become known as the September 11, 2001 attacks. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in 2003.

Yousef filed a motion for a new trial in 2001. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard the case on May 3, 2002, and announced on April 3, 2003 the decision that Yousef and his partners were to remain incarcerated.^[19]

Bojinka was included in a number of 9/11 documentaries and mini-series, including The Path to 9/11, and The Secret History of 9/11.

See also[link]

	Philippines portal
	Terrorism portal
	Aviation portal
	1990s portal

• 1988 Lockerbie Bombing, Pan Am plane destroyed by PETN bomb, killing 270 people
• 1994 Philippine Airlines Flight 434, test run for al-Qaeda Operation Bojinka, killing one plane passenger in bombing
• Debt of Honor, a 1994 Tom Clancy novel where a JAL 747 is used as a weapon against Washington, D.C.
• Executive Decision, a 1996 Kurt Russell movie where a 747 is used as a weapon targeting Washington, D.C.
• 2001 shoe bomb plot, failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing of plane
• 2006 Transatlantic Aircraft Plot, failed plot to blow up at least 10 planes as they flew from the U.K. to the U.S. and Canada
• 2009 Christmas Day bomb plot, failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing of plane
• 2010 cargo plane bomb plot, failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing of plane
• List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
• List of terrorist incidents, 1995

References[link]

External links[link]

• "Bojinka Jetliners Bomb Plot." (index of related articles) The New York Times.
• Jury Finds Three Guilty of Plot To Blow Up a Dozen US, John J. Goldman, Los Angeles Times, The Tech, September 6, 1996
• Information about Khalid Sheik Mohammed
• Information on the attack against the pope

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (June 2011)

Louie Gohmert
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 1st district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 2005
Preceded by	Max Sandlin
Personal details
Born	(1953-08-18) August 18, 1953 (age 58) Pittsburg, Texas
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Kathy Gohmert
Children	Katy, Caroline, and Sarah
Residence	Tyler, Texas
Alma mater	Texas A&M University, Baylor University
Occupation	Congressman
Religion	Southern Baptist
Military service
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1978–1982
Unit	Judge Advocate General's Corps

Louis Buller (Louie) Gohmert, Jr. (born August 18, 1953) is an American politician and current Republican U.S. Representative from Texas's 1st congressional district.

Life and career[link]

Gohmert was born in Pittsburg, Texas. He received his B.A. from Texas A&M University in 1975. At A&M, he was a brigade commander of the Corps of Cadets and class president. He later received his Juris Doctor from Baylor University in Waco in 1977 where he also served as class president. Gohmert served in the United States Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, at Fort Benning, Georgia, from 1978 to 1982. The majority of his U.S. Army legal service was as a defense attorney.

Gohmert was elected as a state district judge for Texas's 7th Judicial District comprising Smith County (Tyler) in 1992 and was reelected two times before being appointed by Governor Rick Perry to fill a vacancy as Chief Justice on Texas's 12th Court of Appeals, where he served from 2002 to 2003. After Texas' 2003 mid-decade redistricting process, he defeated Democratic incumbent 1st District Congressman Max Sandlin for his seat in Congress, becoming the first Republican since Reconstruction to represent the 1st District of northeast Texas. In the Republican primary, Gohmert defeated State Representative Wayne Christian of Center, who thereafter returned to the state legislature.

Gohmert serves on two House committees: Judiciary (because of his judicial background) and Natural Resources (as his district sits on top of the East Texas oil field).

In 2006, Gohmert won his second term by defeating independent Roger L. Owen, a swimming pool builder from Hallsville. He faced no major party opposition in 2008.

Congressional activities[link]

2008–2009[link]

Gohmert offered an alternative plan to kick-start the economy with his tax holiday bill that would allow taxpayers to be exempt for two months from having federal income tax taken out of their paychecks.^[1]

On July 29, 2009, he signed on as a co-sponsor of H.R. 1503. This bill would "amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of president to include with the committee's statement of organization a copy of the candidate's birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the office of president under the Constitution".^[2]

Political positions[link]

Taxes[link]

Gohmert has signed the Americans for Tax Reform's Taxpayer Protection Pledge.^[3]

Abortion[link]

Gohmert has a pro-life voting record. He has stated that he believes that life begins at conception. Gohmert sponsored the Sanctity of Human Life Act. Gohmert voted for the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, a bill that prohibits the transportation of a minor across state lines for the purposes of an abortion without the consent of the minor's parents. He has 100% Pro-Life voting record rating from the NRLC.^[4][5]

Animal rights[link]

In a 2012 meeting of the House Natural Resources Committee, Gohmert stated his strong support of a trans-Alaskan pipeline, as a means for caribou to have more sex.^[6][7][8]

According to Gohmert, "When [the caribou] want to go on a date, they invite each other to head over to the pipeline. So [his] real concern now [is] … if oil stops running through the pipeline … do we need a study to see how adversely the caribou would be affected if that warm oil ever quit flowing?” Gohmert's comments were not favorably received by the rest of the committee; reportedly, Alaskan representative Don Young was forced to stifle his laughter in response.^[9][10]

Energy and the environment[link]

Gohmert does not believe in man made climate change, and has asserted that data supporting the theory is fraudulent. Gohmert has opposed cap-and-trade legislation, such as the one that was passed in the US House when it was Democratic controlled. Gohmert supports expanding drilling, and exploration and drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).^[11]

Education[link]

Gohmert has made statements and voted for legislation that support the use of school vouchers.^[12]

Debt[link]

Gohmert was one of a number of Republicans who voted against the Budget Control Act of 2011 on grounds it did not do enough to deal with the government's growing debt.^[13]

Comments on "terror baby" plots[link]

On August 12, 2010, Gohmert appeared on Anderson Cooper 360° to defend recent comments he made on the floor of the House regarding "terror babies". Initially, Gohmert had claimed (in a speech made on the House floor in June 2010) that an ex-FBI agent had told him about "terror baby" plots. On Fox Business News, Gohmert had later claimed that an airline passenger with a relative in Hamas had a grandchild who was to be intentionally born in the United States.^[14] In the interview, Gohmert asserted that pregnant women from the Middle East are traveling to the US on tourist visas, planning to deliver the child there. According to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, this automatically grants citizenship to the child. Gohmert asserted that the child would then be returned to the mother's home country and be submitted to a life of terrorist training. When repeatedly asked by the host for any evidence of this, Gohmert did not provide substantiation for either the ex-FBI agent story or the airline passenger story, but gave a description of a Washington Post article,^[15] which described so-called "birth tourism" packages, mainly directed at Chinese tourists. These packages (one was described in the article for $14,750) were described by Gohmert as a "gaping hole in the security of our country". When asked several times by Cooper for the connection and any corroborating evidence, Gohmert responded "If you don't think this is evidence, you have to believe that the terrorists are more stupid than these enterprising people".^[16] The Daily Show later parodied this incident.^[17]

Congressional committee assignments[link]

Committee on the Judiciary

• Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
• Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
• Task Force on Judicial Impeachment

Committee on Natural Resources

• Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources
• Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands

In addition Gohmert is a member of the Republican Study Committee and the Tea Party Caucus.

Caucus memberships[link]

• Israel Allies Caucus
• International Conservation Caucus
• Tea Party Caucus

Personal life[link]

Gohmert and his wife Kathy are parents to three daughters. Gohmert attends Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, where he has served as a deacon and teaches Sunday school.^[18]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official congressional website
• Official campaign website
• Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Congressional profile at GovTrack
• Congressional profile at OpenCongress
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs

Articles

• "Nine New Veterans Join Congress", Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine
• Video of Gohmert Criticizing Rep. John Murtha
• Video of Gohmert Blaming Stock Market Failures on Democrats and Murtha