Pope's cavalcade

Williams: When Pope John Paul II visited the Philippines six year ago, he attracted vast crowds from a nation of devout believers.

00:00

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But he also attracted believers of another faith, whose hate for the west was so strong they were planning to use the visit as part of a truly diabolic plan. In January '95, just a few days before the Pope was to come down this very road,

00:25

Williams to camera

a fire in a top floor apartment of this building uncovered an assassination attempt and a chilling plot for international terror.

00:43

Police photos reveal the apartment's arsenal, litres of chemicals to be turned into bombs. Crucifixes that were to help disguise a suicide bomber as a priest, so he could get close enough to blow up the Pope. There were even photos to make sure they didn't miss their mark.

Tiglao

Tiglao: Another plot, and they were quite serious about it, was to assassinate the Pope too.

01:11

Williams: Which they were preparing to do.

Tiglao: That they were preparing to do.

Music

Photos of Yousef

Williams: The mastermind was Yemeni born chemical engineer and Islamic Zealot Ramzi Yousef, since directly linked to Osama bin Laden, and the first bombing of the World Trade Center. His co-conspirators were Wali Khan Amin Shah, and Yousef's lifelong friend, Abdul Hakim Murad.

01:26

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Tiglao

Tiglao: They certainly weren't acting alone, and they were quite well travelled, which would mean that they were part of a bigger network.

01:54

Apartment block

Williams: The three men were in the Philippines at a pilot training school. They shared a flat in this apartment block in downtown Manila. It was Murad who started the fire here by accidentally mixing water with the chemicals.

02:05

Yousef and Wali Khan escaped, but Murad was caught by Philippines police when he returned to retrieve a lap top computer.

02:19

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Delfin: I asked him why he hates Americans.

Delfin

Super:

Chief Super, Robert Delfin

Director, Police Intelligence

He said because of the help they sent to the Israel people, giving war materials and support, financial support to these people, and in return these people use this ammunition, killing their brother Muslims.

0:37

Williams: What's all this?

Delfin: This is component to be used in time bomb.

Williams: Time switch.

Delfin: Time switch, yeah.

Williams: The apartment was groaning with evidence. Chief Superintendent Robert Delfin was able to uncover pieces of a complex three part terrorist strike, codenamed Operation Bojinka.

03:04

Besides the plot to kill the Pope, Bojinka had American targets.

Delfin

Delfin: The concentration was placing bombs on the different U.S. airlines, flying Manila, then Hong Kong, Manila-U.S., I think Hong Kong-U.S., Singapore-U.S., something like that. I think they were targeting five airlines.

03:22

Planes

Music

Williams: The chemical bombs were to be planted on 11 U.S. aircraft soon after the Pope's assassination.

03:55

Tiglao

Tiglao: Eleven planes from Asia going to the United States, and these bombs were set to explode in U.S. airspace. And the idea was to terrorise the airline industry in the United States, so it would shut down.

04:06

Bomb aftermath on plane

Williams: Just a few weeks before the Pope's visit, Ramzi Yousef had already successfully test run Operation Bojinka by planting a small chemical bomb under a seat of Philippines Airlines flight 434 for Tokyo. It killed a passenger and blew a hole in the plane.

Domingo

Super:

Andrea Domingo

Immigration Commissioner

Domingo: The Bojinka was composed of pilots and engineers.

04:44

They are trained and educated and that they are very dedicated, they fundamentalist extremists in their religion.

Music

Police headquarters

Williams: Totally dedicated, and tough, Murad would not betray the cause.

05:00

But after weeks of savage beatings, Murad was tricked into thinking he would be sent to Israel, and he finally revealed his pilot training was to be used.

Delfin

Delfin: I asked him why he took the training on flying, and he mentioned that their plan to place bomb on the plane and crash it, specifically on the Langley CIA building headquarters, and other American buildings.

05:16

Tiglao

Super:

Rigoberto Tiglao

Presidential spokesman

Tiglao: Their computers, their lap top computers, were recovered and Filipino computer experts managed to retrieve them, even the deleted files.

05:36

Williams: Confession is one thing, but it was backed up with hard data from Murad's lap top computer.

Tiglao: One plot too was to get a small plane in the United States, and ram it into the CIA headquarters and there's some information too that they were intending to run it into bigger buildings, taller buildings.

05:51

Williams: Did they name those buildings?

Tiglao: We are trying to confirm it and we're trying to retrieve all the data, because that was in 1995, but one report by a Filipino technician who actually recovered the files said that they named some buildings which again included the World Trade Center. I believe the Sears Tower too.

06:11

Avelino at press conference

Avelino: And it established the existence of several terrorist cells in the Philippines which have links to Osama bin Laden.

06:29

Williams: Superintendent Avelino Razon was in charge of the Pope's security at the time of Murad's arrest. After seeing terrorists use planes to destroy the World Trade Center, Razon reopened Murad's six year old file.

Avelino: I remembered now when we interrogated Murad, he mentioned that he was a skilled pilot in the U.S., in Afghanistan and also here in the Philippines. He was recruited to undertake a suicide mission.

06:53

Williams: Since this media conference, Razon has been gagged by a government not wishing to embarrass America. But he's not alone in believing Murad and Ramzi Yousef were part of the same terrorist group that destroyed the World Trade towers.

07:09

Delfin

Delfin: Yeah, I believe it's the same plan and the same organisation, because they planned this a long time ago, before 1995, and I think another group just carry out what they planned all along.

07:27

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Victims of bomb blast/Rescue operation

Williams: In 1997, the full extent of Ramzi Yousef's commitment to terrorism became clear.

07:43

Music

Williams: He was extradited to the United States from Pakistan, not only on conspiracy charges related to Operation Bojinka, but also for masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He was jailed for life, plus 240 years.

In the Philippines the link between Yousef's Operation Bojinka and the recent World Trade Center attacks are clear.

08:16

Delfin: Maybe the overall plan of this is still free, and from the group of Murad I think it was just transferred to the younger generation of this terrorist group.

Domingo

Domingo: Ramzi Yousef was the one who tried to bomb the World Trade Center before. They were going to bomb certain very strategic places in the United States and other countries. And that was related to international intelligence communities, but apparently no attention was paid to it.

08:37

Williams with Arroyo

Williams: President Gloria Arroyo is diplomatic about the failures of U.S. intelligence six years ago.

08:56

Super: Gloria Arroyo

President, The Philippines

Arroyo: It's very easy to be wise in hindsight. What I have seen as commander in chief, I have seen how many leads you can be faced with, roomfuls of leads and information and how do you process each one of them. Many of them are wild good chases. How do you tell which one is a strong lead and which one is a wild goose chase. The fact that nothing happened within the last six years, it's understandable to think that such wild plans were really wild and could not be carried out.

Tiglao

Tiglao: The problem of course is that years passed, and there's no such indication at all. There's been no major hijacking of an international liner, or even a U.S. domestic liner ever since. So I guess people tend to forget about it and dismiss it, put it in their filing cabinet, and say that it was just a fantastic ambition of a group of terrorists.

09:39

Newspapers

Williams: The FBI has reopened the Bojinka file, looking for leads previously missed, and is now pursuing Bin Laden's financial links to the Philippines.

10:07

Williams to camera

Williams: This building is pretty dark and dingy, yet it's the type of place that's become the target in the hunt for bin Laden's international terrorist network. Police now believe that it was from this room that bin Laden's brother-in-law ran a commercial front to funnel funds to Islamic terrorists in the Philippines' south.

10:22

Abu Sayyaf members

Williams: The money went here, to a small but fiercely extreme group of Islamic militants known as the Abu Sayyaf.

10:45

They're based o the southern island of Basilan, and their leaders, like Quaddafi Janjalani have strong links to Ramzi Yousef. Janjalani and Yousef fought together in Afghanistan's jihad against the Soviets. And when Janjalani returned to the Philippines he set up a firebrand cell as part of Osama bin Laden's global push for an Islamic state.

He did it with Yousef's help.

Tiglao

Super: Rigoberto Tiglao

Presidential spokesman

Tiglao: Murad, upon interrogation, claimed that Yousef himself had been instructed by an operative of bin Laden to go to Basilan island in southern Philippines to train a group of Abu Sayyaf members in explosives.

11:21

Williams: A direct order from bin Laden.

11:41

Tiglao: That's what Murad disclosed.

Soldiers on chopper/hostages

Williams: Murad's arrest restricted bin Laden's money flow, and the Abu Sayyaf recently turned to a more spectacular revenue raiser, kidnapping. Especially holidaying foreigners.

11:49

When they took this group last year, their demand was the release of Ramzi Yousef. But they finally settled for an estimated $18 million in secret ransom payments.

Four months ago, they took a new group, including three Americans, one of whom they say they've already beheaded.

Gunfire

Army fires on kidnappers

Williams: Fear and clan loyalty mean they easily slip away, like they did with all the hostages from this army assault in June.

12:26

Washington's attempts to root out bin Laden's extremist legacy could prove just as difficult. But Manila's ready to join the fight.

Arroyo: Our support is total support in whatever the U.S. requires from the Philippines, we will be willing to do.

12:49

Arroyo

First it's our own home grown terrorism. We should step up our work there and also our own legislation, like money laundering. And then sharing of intelligence. That's really very concrete and very feasible. And then sharing of our airspace and our ground facilities.

12:58

Music

Williams: Apart from the home grown Abu Sayyaf, officials here believe they've largely neutralised bin Laden linked terrorist cells. But warn that may not be the case amid the millions of Muslims in the rest of the region.

13:26

Mosques

Tiglao: We are wondering if there are hidden cells in other South East Asian countries.

13:42

In other countries, Indonesia and Malaysia, there hasn't been the equivalent of our intensified campaign against suspected cells.

Williams: Fearing a rise of militancy, the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia are boosting intelligence sharing.

14:03

But as the west embarks on its war against Islamic terror, it should not be forgotten that were it not for an accidental fire in a seedy Manila apartment block, this war could have been started by the extremists six years ago. The fact they've now succeeded reveals a commitment that won't be easily deterred.

Credits:

Manila Plot:

Reporter: Evan Williams

Camera: Marc Laban

Editor: Simon Brynjolffssen

Producer: Virginia Moncrieff