Bin Laden's Failed Plan to Attack Trains on 9/11 Anniversary

Osama bin Laden was working to assemble a team of militants to attack the U.S. on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, according to communications Navy SEALs seized from his Pakistani hideout when they killed the al Qaeda leader this spring.

Bin Laden and his operations chief, Attiyah Abd al-Rahman, swapped views about the composition of the attack team, with bin Laden repeatedly rejecting names that Mr. Rahman suggested, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence taken from the bin Laden compound.

The plans were only in the discussion phase, U.S. officials said. They haven't seen any signs the nascent plot ever went beyond the early planning, the officials said.

Still, earlier this month in his first meeting with senior staff at the Central Intelligence Agency, acting Director Michael Morell told his staff that one of their top priorities would be to make sure that neither that plan nor any others were carried out.

Plans for an anniversary attack were one of the few specific potential threats to emerge from the trove of documents and other materials taken from bin Laden's residence in Abottabad, Pakistan, in the May 2 raid. An initial analysis of the evidence said al Qaeda hoped to attack trains in the U.S., possibly on the anniversary of Sept. 11.

Other plotting with Mr. Rahman focused on recruiting attackers who had legitimate passports and other travel documents.

Bin Laden communicated with Mr. Rahman largely via documents saved to flash drives that were delivered by trusted couriers, according to people briefed on the communications.

Much of the other threat information in the trove of materials was general in nature or well known, such as al Qaeda's interest in attacking trains.

In the days following the bin Laden raid, officials said the materials seized from the compound showed enthusiasm for carrying out attacks on dates of symbolic significance, prompting U.S. officials to worry about July 4 and Sept. 11. But officials didn't disclose at that time that there had been specific planning for another attack on Sept. 11 this year.

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Work advanced in June on the Sept. 11 Memorial in New York. It is scheduled to be dedicated this year.
.Mr. Rahman ascended within the terrorist organization after al Qaeda's third-in-command, Sheik Sa'id al-Masri, was killed last year in a CIA drone attack in Pakistan. Mr. Rahman has long been on the list of al Qaeda leaders targeted by the U.S.

The bin Laden documents show how central a figure Mr. Rahman had become for the al Qaeda organization, said people briefed on the documents. "Many were not aware of the day-to-day operations role that Attiyah played," said one person.

U.S. intelligence agencies don't know whether al Qaeda ever fielded an attack team or if other details were discussed. For instance, the U.S. doesn't know what targets, if any, bin Laden considered attacking.

Some U.S. officials cautioned that other materials in the trove showed bin Laden was often ignored by his underlings.

"What we found was that he was very isolated, and it is clearly the case he was struggling to continue to hold on to the type of influence and to direct operations in ways he may have been able to do in the past," a U.S. official said.

Counterterrorism officials from half-a-dozen U.S. agencies have completed their reviews of the bin Laden materials, much of which were held at a secure facility at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.

Beyond the planning for an anniversary attack, the bin Laden trove produced few concrete leads of any sort, largely because information that might have located other terrorist leaders, such as phone numbers, ceased to have value almost the instant the U.S. government obtained it, officials said.

"The treasure trove has not led to any big takedowns, because the bad guys knew we had it" and adapted, a senior U.S. official said.

For example, the two phone numbers that bin Laden had sewn into his clothing at the time he was killed didn't provide actionable leads, the official said. One connected to a public phone center in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The other turned out to be a dead end.

Phone numbers retrieved from phones obtained at the bin Laden compound also led nowhere.

The Obama administration, worried about leaks inside the Pakistani government, did not warn Islamabad prior to the bin Laden raid, and the mission has incited a backlash of anti-U.S. anger. U.S. officials believe some elements of the Pakistani government knew bin Laden's whereabouts.

Since the raid, CIA officials have met repeatedly with their Pakistani counterparts to repair relations.

The most recent such meeting came on Thursday, when Pakistan's intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, met with Mr. Morell at CIA headquarters. U.S. officials said the two men agreed on several steps to improve counterterrorism cooperation between the two nations. Gen. Pasha also met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Past meetings have had mixed results. At a previous meeting, Mr. Morell provided Gen. Pasha with the locations of two bomb-making facilities. American officials were dismayed to discover subsequently that the militants abandoned the facilities before Pakistani authorities raided them.

Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com

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