The CIA has declassified 71 highly classified intelligence documents that reveal the extent of warnings received by US officials about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida in the years leading up to the September 11, 2001, attacks.Released on Friday, the 25th anniversary of the attacks, the documents include presidential daily briefs prepared for Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush. They detail intelligence on bin Laden’s movements, his support network, efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction and concerns that al-Qaida was preparing attacks inside the United States.“I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”25 years ago, President George W. Bush gave his famous “I can hear you” speech at Ground Zero, just three days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.With one… pic.twitter.com/PVTBfUl5RM— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 11, 2026CIA Director John Ratcliffe described the release as an “act of exceptional transparency” and said it was the agency’s largest-ever release of declassified President’s Daily Brief products related to 9/11. The CIA said the material includes more than 100 pages of analysis that are being made public for the first time.Warnings about attacks on US soilOne of the earliest documents, from February 1998 and prepared for Clinton, was titled “Terrorists seeking WMD capability” and referred to bin Laden and other extremist groups.An April 1998 briefing also described the Taliban’s reluctance to hand over bin Laden, who was living in Afghanistan under its protection. The document said the Taliban’s gratitude for his role during the Soviet occupation made it reluctant to restrict his activities.By July 1998, intelligence briefers considered it plausible that bin Laden placed a high priority on attacks inside the US and noted his interest in chemical and biological weapons.A September 1998 briefing went further, saying bin Laden’s preferred option was to attack the US on its own soil in Washington and warning that al-Qaida might use an explosive-laden aircraft against an American city, according to the Associated Press, which reviewed the documents..Casualty figures are given separately by event and source, and are not combined. Document dates and titles follow the CIA’s own published index.Sources: CIA, 71 declassified President’s Daily Brief products, released September 11, 2026; Associated Press; CBS News; NBC News; Al Jazeera; BBC; text of the August 6, 2001 PDB released April 2004; 9/11 Commission record; World Trade Center Health Program. Compiled September 12, 2026.View the full 101-page release (PDF) Opens the CIA’s complete 71-document collection, hosted by The Indian ExpressExpress InfoGenIE · Global Desk.The warnings continued. In December 1998, a briefing referred to an al-Qaida network that had received hijacking training and described conspirators evading security checks during a trial run at an unidentified New York airport.Story continues below this adIntelligence tracked bin Laden’s WMD ambitionsThe documents also show that US intelligence was monitoring al-Qaida’s attempts to acquire unconventional weapons.Briefings described bin Laden’s efforts to obtain material for so-called “dirty bombs”, conventional explosives combined with radioactive material. By June 1999, intelligence officials said his operatives had conducted experiments intended to increase the energy output of explosives.Briefings prepared for Bush in early 2001 also focused on bin Laden’s attempts to develop and deploy biological agents using crude methods.The intelligence community was simultaneously concerned that bin Laden was misleading the Taliban about his intentions. The documents indicate that officials believed he was not necessarily being truthful when he suggested he did not intend to launch an unprovoked attack against the US.Story continues below this adA warning just weeks before 9/11By August 2001, the intelligence picture had become more urgent.A briefing prepared about a month before the attacks said bin Laden remained committed to carrying out terrorist attacks in the US. It also pointed to the 1998 al-Qaida bombings of US embassies as evidence that the organisation could prepare operations over several years and was not easily deterred by setbacks.The moment President George W. Bush learned 9/11 had happened in a classroom pic.twitter.com/1TfFSO602S— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) November 8, 2023 The same period saw reports of suspicious activity inside the US that intelligence officials considered consistent with preparations for hijackings or other attacks.The briefing referred to surveillance of federal buildings in New York and said the FBI was conducting about 70 full-field investigations across the US that it considered related to bin Laden, according to the Associated Press.Story continues below this adThe CIA’s release does not, however, establish that US officials knew the precise timing, targets or method of the September 11 attacks. The documents remain partly redacted, including material that could identify intelligence sources. AP reported that the newly released records do not appear to fundamentally alter what is already known about the planning of the attacks or how US agencies responded.What happened after 9/11?The release also sheds light on the intelligence failures that became a major focus after the attacks.A bipartisan commission that investigated 9/11 highlighted serious problems in information-sharing between agencies, including the CIA and FBI. Its recommendations eventually led to the creation of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Counterterrorism Center.The National Archives also released another set of records on Friday, including interviews with senior national security officials from the Clinton and Bush administrations. Those records were produced as part of the 9/11 Commission’s investigation, which ran from 2002 to 2004.Story continues below this adUS tells UN: ‘We hunted down bin Laden’The document release came as the UN Security Council marked 25 years since the attacks.The 15-member council adopted a presidential statement reaffirming its condemnation of the September 11 attacks and stressing that terrorism, its financing and the planning and preparation of terrorist acts remain contrary to the UN Charter. It was the council’s first presidential statement on counter-terrorism in five years.US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz told the council that the US and its allies had pursued al-Qaida and other militant groups in the years since the attacks.“Together, we hunted down bin Laden,” Waltz said, referring also to US-led campaigns against the Islamic State and other extremist groups.Story continues below this adBin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011, nearly a decade after the September 11 attacks.Pakistan’s UN envoy Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, meanwhile, highlighted his country’s losses in the fight against terrorism, saying more than 4,700 Pakistanis had been killed by terrorism emanating from Afghanistan over the preceding three years. He cited attacks attributed by Pakistan to groups including the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and Balochistan Liberation Army.The UN’s counter-terrorism body said the threat has evolved significantly since 2001, becoming more fragmented and diffuse even as countries have strengthened their counter-terrorism cooperation.(With inputs from AP and PTI)