Free Republic

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – A Malaysian recruited by al-Qaeda to pilot a plane in a second wave of Sept. 11-style attacks on the United States pulled out after observing the carnage of the 2001 assaults, Southeast Asian officials said Friday. President Bush on Thursday outlined details of an alleged plot to hijack an airliner and fly it into a skyscraper in Los Angeles. He said cooperation between Washington and several Asian countries helped expose it. The plan never appeared close to the stage where it could be put into execution. Scores of arrests in the aftermath of the Sept. 11,...

A Malaysian pilot recruited by al-Qaeda to fly a hijacked airliner into the tallest building on the US West Coast pulled out of the plot when he realised it was a suicide mission, security officials in South-East Asia said today. Further details emerged of the plan to target the iconic 73-storey US Bank Building in Los Angeles, revealed by President Bush yesterday in an address to rally support for the War on Terror. Terrorism experts in Malaysia said that Zaini Zakaria, an engineer, was among three men being trained to launch the planned second-wave of Osama bin Laden's assault on...