Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network had considered India as a potential target for terrorist attacks years before the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, newly declassified CIA intelligence documents have revealed.
The revelations are part of a fresh release of 71 declassified President's Daily Brief documents by the US Central Intelligence Agency marking the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The documents shed new light on intelligence assessments about bin Laden, al-Qaeda's activities and the threat posed by the terror network in the years before 9/11.
According to the newly reported intelligence, bin Laden's ambitions extended beyond the United States. India and Pakistan were among the countries identified as potential targets, along with Uganda and possibly Nigeria. The intelligence indicated that the al-Qaeda leader was pursuing a broader global terror strategy before the September 11 attacks.
The documents also provide a wider picture of how closely US intelligence agencies were tracking bin Laden during the late 1990s. CIA assessments from the period covered his movements, terrorist network, attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction and preparations for attacks against US interests.
One of the declassified documents, dated September 10, 1998, warned that bin Laden was considering attacks involving an explosive-laden aircraft against an American city, with Washington, DC, among the areas of concern. The intelligence did not provide conclusive details about when or exactly how such an attack would take place.
Other intelligence assessments released by the CIA show that US officials were receiving repeated warnings about al-Qaeda's plans well before 9/11. A December 1998 assessment stated that bin Laden was actively planning attacks against US targets and that his organisation was recruiting operatives for attacks inside the United States.
The newly released files therefore offer further insight into the scale of the threat posed by bin Laden and al-Qaeda before the 2001 attacks. They also show that intelligence agencies had identified multiple elements of the terror network's plans, although the available information often lacked specific details about the timing, location and method of potential attacks.
The CIA released the documents on September 11, 2026, as part of its commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people and fundamentally changed global counter-terrorism policies.
The revelations about India add another dimension to the historical record, showing that the threat from bin Laden's network was not confined to the United States and that the terror group's ambitions had a wider international reach years before 9/11.
