‘Al Qaeda plot to kill Bill Clinton that history nearly forgot’

Air Force One with President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton aboard was on its final approach to Manila on Nov. 23, 1996, when their U.S.

Secret Service detail received alarming intelligence: an explosive device had been planted on the motorcade route into the Philippines capital.
Acting swiftly, the agents switched to a back-up route to the Clintons’ hotel, foiling a suspected al Qaeda attempt to assassinate the president of the United States minutes after his arrival for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

As the motorcade crawled along the traffic-clogged alternate route, Filipino security officers recovered a powerful bomb on a bridge the convoy would have taken and an SUV abandoned nearby containing AK-47 assault rifles, four retired agents told to an International News Agency.

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The assassination attempt, which appears to be one of al Qaeda’s earliest attempts to strike the U.S., was mentioned briefly in books published in 2010 and 2019.

Former CIA director Leon Panetta, who was Clinton’s chief of staff at the time, said he was unaware of the incident but that an attempt to kill a president should be investigated.
“As a former chief of staff, I’d be very interested in trying to find out whether somebody put this information to the side and didn’t bring it to the attention of people who should have been aware that something like that happened.”
Under a 1986 law it is a crime for a foreign extremist organization to attempt to kill any U.S. national overseas. Prosecution requires authorization from the attorney general – the late Janet Reno in 1996 – which would then trigger an FBI investigation.
The FBI declined to comment on the Manila assassination attempt.
Four former U.S. officials, including the ambassador in Manila at the time, Thomas Hubbard, confirmed the foiled attack to Reuters but said they were also unaware of any U.S. investigation or follow-up actions.

The 18 leaders attending the (APEC) summit wave in front of Subic Bay, November 25, 1996. REUTERS/David Gray Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
Thirteen years after Osama bin Laden’s death, al Qaeda is a diminished force. But the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas “mobilized efforts to radicalize and recruit new followers within Muslim communities in Europe,” a U.N. panel of experts wrote in a Jan. 29 report, citing al Qaeda propaganda supporting Hamas.
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Glod said a U.S. intelligence agency later assessed that the plot was set up at bin Laden’s behest by al Qaeda operatives and the Abu Sayyaf Group, Filipino Islamists widely considered an arm of al Qaeda.

According to a 2022 International Crisis Group report, the group is in disarray, with only a handful of its leaders still alive.
The office of the Philippines’ president, Department of Foreign Affairs and the National Police did not respond to requests for comment.
Four of the Secret Service agents who spoke to News Agency noted that Ramzi Yousef – the al Qaeda-linked mastermind of the first World Trade Center attack in 1993 and a nephew of September 11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who had trained Abu Sayyaf militan. (courtesy Reuters)