May 27, 1995, Seattle Times News Services, Terrorist Plot Targeted 11 U.S. Airliners In Day -- Muslim Extremist Leader Had Developed Undetectable Nitro Bombs, Records Show, by Charles P. Wallace,

May 27, 1995, Seattle Times News Services, Terrorist Plot Targeted 11 U.S. Airliners In Day -- Muslim Extremist Leader Had Developed Undetectable Nitro Bombs, Records Show, by Charles P. Wallace, Los Angeles Times

MANILA, Philippines - They called the project Bojinka, "the explosion." The plan was complex and technically brilliant. It might have been the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

Project Bojinka was a plan to blow up 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific in a day of rage at the United States. According to investigators, it called for five Muslim terrorists to plant undetectable nitroglycerine bombs aboard jumbo jets in a synchronized plan that had bombers changing planes as many as four times in a day.

The U.S. government has accused Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the Pakistani suspected of engineering the New York World Trade Center bombing, of being the mastermind. Yousef was captured in Pakistan in February and awaits trial in New York on charges of planning both attacks. If convicted, he faces the death penalty.

Also charged in the airliner plot is a 27-year-old Pakistani named Abdul Hakim Murad, who was arrested in a Manila apartment Jan. 6. Police said they found pipe bombs, bomb-making manuals and a computer hard disk with details of the Bojinka plot.

Both have pleaded not guilty.

The two were also accused in the Philippines of planning to assassinate Pope John Paul II in January. That plan is now believed to have been designed to confuse authorities and deflect attention from the airplane plot.

Philippine and Western intelligence experts said the Bojinka investigation has also provided disturbing evidence of a worldwide network of terrorists who received weapons training and religious indoctrination during the decade-long international effort to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

The international brigades of Afghan "mujahedeen," or resistance fighters, were recruited throughout the Islamic world as part of a covert, $4 billion effort in the 1970s and '80s by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Saudi Arabia to drive the Soviets from Afghanistan. Since the Soviet-installed government fell in 1992, many of the fighters have returned to their home countries as converts to radical Islam - determined to overthrow secular regimes and attack the "Satan" United States for its support of Israel.

A recent study by Jane's Intelligence Review estimated there are about 14,000 foreign veterans of the Afghan war. It said they have taken commanding roles in terrorist groups in Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, the West Bank and as far afield as China and the Philippines.

Philippine officials acknowledge that the thwarting of Project Bojinka owes less to investigatory prowess than to an accident Jan. 6. They say Yousef and Murad were mixing bomb material in a sink when the mixture began spewing smoke.

A notebook written in Arabic was among the items recovered from the apartment. "It was like a cookbook with step-by-step instructions on how to make various bombs," said one Philippine official, adding that the FBI later found fingerprints on the notebook matching Yousef's.

Philippine authorities say they have evidence that Yousef carried out a practice run for Bojinka.

On Dec. 11, 1994, a bomb blew a hole in the side of Philippine Airlines Flight 434 bound for Tokyo. The bomb killed a Japanese tourist seated near the explosive, which was taped under a seat, and wounded 10 others. The plane made an emergency landing in Guam.

Authorities say a man telephoned the Associated Press in Manila and claimed the attack was the work of the Abu Sayyaf group, a Muslim extremist organization in the Philippines.

Murad told investigators that a jubilant Yousef had made the call as part of an alliance with Abu Sayyaf.

An engineering graduate of Britain's Swansea University, Yousef had created a virtually undetectable bomb. From the bomb formula found in the computer and evidence provided by Murad, authorities said Yousef had learned to make a stable, liquid form of nitroglycerin, the explosive component of TNT. Liquid bombs are the most difficult to manufacture because of their volatility.

Yousef bought a ticket for a flight from Manila to the southern city of Cebu, where Yousef left the plane and returned to Manila, leaving the bomb under his seat for the second leg of the journey to Tokyo.

He had concealed the nitroglycerin compound in a bottle normally used to hold saline solution for contact lenses.

Murad told authorities that after the plane took off, Yousef locked himself in the restroom and mixed the nitroglycerin. He taped the package under the seat.

Murad, authorities said, told them the Philippine Airlines bomb provided the model for Bojinka. Five terrorists, including Yousef and Murad, would fan out over Asia, targeting U.S. airlines that flew multistop routes.

For example, one man, code-named Obaid, would fly from Singapore to Hong Kong on United Airlines. He would plant the bomb and then exit in Hong Kong. But the plane would proceed to Los Angeles, with the explosion occurring in the middle of its 11-hour journey.

In all, the five terrorists would place bombs aboard 11 U.S. planes and meet in Karachi, Pakistan.

Although only two of the five alleged bombers have been caught, the other three tentatively have been identified from photographs.

In Washington, spokesmen for the CIA and other U.S. government agencies refused to comment. But one knowledgeable official said: "As a result of what the U.S. government learned, the FAA put security measures into effect to protect U.S. airlines."

Philippine authorities said Murad also reported that Yousef asked him in 1992 to survey New York City for a bombing target that would produce maximum casualties.

They said Murad told them he suggested to Yousef one place where thousands of people congregate: the World Trade Center.

Four men were convicted of planting the bomb at the World Trade Center and sentenced to 240 years each.