Expert: Bin Laden Warned of 'Unprecedented' Attack

Expert: Bin Laden Warned of 'Unprecedented' Attack
(Reuters) Sep 11, 11:19 AM ET

Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden warned three weeks ago that he and his followers would carry out an unprecedented attack on U.S. interests for its support of Israel, an Arab journalist with access to him said Tuesday.

Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi, an Arabic-language weekly news magazine, said Islamic fundamentalists led by bin Laden were "almost certainly" behind the attack of the World Trade Center in New York.

"It is most likely the work of Islamic fundamentalists. Osama bin Laden warned three weeks ago that he would attack American interests in an unprecedented attack, a very big one," Atwan told Reuters.

"Personally, we received information that he planned very, very big attacks against American interests. We received several warnings like this. We did not take it so seriously, preferring to see what would happen before reporting it."

Atwan has interviewed bin Laden and maintains close contacts with his followers. ...

This information was reported by Reuters on the day of 9/11. Some news outlets reported it, but many didn't or after initially reporting it, they later left out the reference to Israel. (On TV I only saw this report mentioned once and it looks like it slipped in because Tom Brokaw read from the news wire, reading it live on air without knowing what it was going to say. I didn't see him make one mention of it after) UPDATE: I found another mention, this time by CBS, where someone read this Reuters newswire to include the part mentioning Israel. Here is an example of where they didn't read “Israel”