The 9/11 Commission, at pp. 147-48 of its final report, offered this overview of the 1994 plot by Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheik Mohammed (among others) that I described earlier this morning. The parallels to today’s news from the UK are striking (including the business about smuggling nitrcellulose onto cargo planes):

Yousef’s instant notoriety as the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Cen­ter bombing inspired KSM to become involved in planning attacks against the United States. By his own account, KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his vio­lent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel. In 1994, KSM accompanied Yousef to the Philippines, and the two of them began planning what is now known as the Manila air or “Bojinka” plot—the intended bomb­ing of 12 U.S. commercial jumbo jets over the Pacific during a two-day span. This marked the first time KSM took part in the actual planning of a terrorist operation.While sharing an apartment in Manila during the summer of 1994, he and Yousef acquired chemicals and other materials necessary to construct bombs and timers.They also cased target flights to Hong Kong and Seoul that would have onward legs to the United States. During this same period, KSM and Yousef also developed plans to assassinate President Clinton during his November 1994 trip to Manila, and to bomb U.S.-bound cargo carriers by smuggling jackets containing nitrocellulose on board. KSM left the Philippines in September 1994 and met up with Yousef in Karachi following their casing flights. There they enlisted Wali Khan Amin Shah, also known as Usama Asmurai, in the Manila air plot. During the fall of 1994,Yousef returned to Manila and successfully tested the digital watch timer he had invented, bombing a movie theater and a Philippine Airlines flight en route to Tokyo.The plot unraveled after the Philippine authorities discovered Yousef’s bomb-making operation in Manila; but by that time, KSM was safely back at his government job in Qatar.Yousef attempted to follow through on the cargo carriers plan, but he was arrested in Islamabad by Pakistani authori­ties on February 7, 1995, after an accomplice turned him in.