Bin Laden ‘considered attacking UK before 9/11', top secret documents reveal

 A previously top secret document has revealed "strong indications" that Osama bin Laden wanted to attack Britain on its own soil years before 9/11. Newly declassified presidential memos released by CIA director John Ratcliffe to mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks show the UK was on the Al-Qaeda leader's hitlist back in 1998.

The single-largest publication of such files linked to the atrocity, which claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people, including 67 British citizens, was aimed at providing "a glimpse" into the CIA's "most sensitive intelligence from the years before and day after one of the nation's darkest moments".

One of the documents, dated August 28, 1998, said Bin Laden was looking at options for attacks against the UK. It suggested the terror chief was plotting action against the UK or US hours before America launched cruise missile strikes on Al-Qaeda bases in Sudan and Afghanisatan in retaliation for the earlier bombing of US embasses in Kenya and Tanzania.

A CIA memo at the end of 1998 detailed "strong indications that he would like to attack the US and allies such as the UK and Israel on their own soil".

The agency also made an ominous reference to "planning to hijack an aircraft" in relation to "impending anti-US terrorist operations"

Britain was also named in the tranche of papers as a recruiting ground for the Al-Qaeda leader, alongside Pakistan, Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula.

A separate file dated August 1999 underlined Bin Laden's frustration after two of his London-based henchmen were detained by British police.

It read: "His organisation's capabilities have suffered from the arrest of key operatives. [Bin Laden] in interviews last year expressed anger of the arrests of his senior procurement officer and the chief of his organisation in the UK."

The final CIA document, dated the day after the attacks, provided a situation report in which Bin Laden's name featured prominently.

It indicated that the attacks had been planned for two years and suggested the White House and congressional building may also have been targets.

On September 11, 2001, 2,977 people were killed when passenger jets hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists struck the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, causing both to collapse, and the Pentagon outside Washington DC.

It remains the deadliest terrorist attack of all time, claiming the lives of victims from more than 90 nations.