Pre-Sept 11 memo to Bush warned al-Qaeda active in US

The Bush administration released the memorandum under pressure from the official inquiry into the 2001 strikes by Osama bin Laden's group as the president's counter-terrorism strategy before September 11 faces growing scrutiny.

The memo, entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US", said that in mid-2001 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents suspected al-Qaeda was preparing air hijackings and had been studying federal buildings in New York.

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Al-Qaeda members hijacked planes and slammed them into the New York World Trade Center's twin towers and the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth hijacked plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks.

The memo has been widely debated at the public hearings of the independent September 11 commission but details had not been given as it was a classified Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB).

The commission had strenuously called for the White House to release the memo, featured strongly in questioning on Thursday Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.

"We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a (-censored-) service in 1998 saying that bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of 'Blind Shaykh,' 'Umar' Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists," said the memo.

"Nevertheless," it went on, "FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."

The memo said bin Laden's "attacks against the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrated he prepared operations years in advance, and is not deterred by setbacks.