Thanks To Fire, Bojinka Plot Terrorism Plan Revealed, In History January 6, 1995

Philippine Airlines Flight 434 after being detonated. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - On January 6, 1995, a fire broke out due to a chemical explosion in an apartment in Manila, Philippines. It turned out that the fire was caused by the activity of compounding bombs with chemical liquids. It was this explosion that exposed a terrorist plot called the Bojinka plot.

Citing the New York Times, the Bojinka plot was a large-scale, three-phase terrorist attack plot devised by uncle and nephew, Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They plotted to assassinate Pope John Paul II, blowing up 11 planes en route from Asia to the United States with the aim of killing some 4,000 passengers and halting air travel around the world. They also planned to crash the plane into the headquarters of the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Yousef, according to the 9/11 Commission, studied flight schedules and planned to smuggle chemicals onto planes bound for Seoul, South Korea and Hong Kong and then to the US. The idea was that a bomb, complete with a timer, would be left on the plane. Later the gang will stop before blowing up the device.

To train operations, a rehearsal bomb was detonated at the Manila theater in late 1994. Another bomb was hidden aboard Philippine Airlines Flight 434 from Manila to Tokyo 10 days later. The bomb exploded en route to Tokyo and killed one passenger, but the pilot managed to land the damaged plane.

Despite that careful planning, Bojinka's plot fell apart due to a fire in the apartment. The fire caught the attention of the Philippine National Police West Police District (PNP-WPD) on 6–7 January 1995.

Ramzi Yousef. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Yousef fled the Philippines after the fire. Police later arrested Abdul Hakim Murad, a person who returned to the burning apartment to clear up incriminating evidence.

The items included nitroglycerin, bomb-making equipment, notes on bomb formulas, a computer with airline flight information, a timer to detonate a bomb, and a letter threatening to attack the US. Yousef was arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan, in February 1995.

According to investigators, Yousef's specialty is making bombs from objects that appear harmless and go undetected by airport security. He made digital watches that were modified as bomb timers or plastic bottles for contact lens solutions filled with the liquid component for nitroglycerin.

When questioned after his arrest, Yousef refused to explain exactly how he planned to carry out the bombing. During the trial that began in May 1996, Yousef represented himself.

Speak clearly and calmly in your closing argument. He accused police in the Philippines and Pakistan of putting up evidence against him. His legal adviser, Roy Kulcsar, supported this view.

"I think the evidence fully supports the finding that almost everyone who is from the Philippines, certainly everyone who works in the Philippine National Police, is lying at one critical point or another. They admit as much as they testify," Kulcsar said, citing CNN.

Born in Kuwait to a Palestinian mother and Pakistani father, Yousef studied electrical engineering in England and then traveled to Pakistan where he was trained in bomb-making. Yousef designed and manufactured the urea-nitrate truck bomb used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Upon his return to Pakistan he took the job of assassinating Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. His attempts failed and he went into hiding and ended up in the Philippines with his maternal uncle who was also the mastermind of Bojinka's plot, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed.

Meanwhile, Mohammed was arrested only on March 1, 2003, in the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan by the CIA and Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Immediately after his arrest, Mohammed was taken to a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan, then Poland, where he was interrogated by US agents. In December 2006, he was transferred to military custody at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

In March 2007, after lengthy interrogation, Mohammed admitted that he was also behind the September 11 attacks. Other crimes he confessed to were Richard Reid's shoe bomb to blow up an airplane; the Bali I Bombings; the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; the assassination of Daniel Pearl; and various thwarted attacks and other crimes.

*Read other information about TODAY's HISTORY or read other interesting articles from Putri Ainur Islam.

TODAY'S HISTORY More