Al-Qaeda planned to attack the southern Israeli port city of Eilat, and an Israeli national unsuccessfully tried to stop two of the hijackers of a September 11 plane from entering the cockpit of the aircraft, the 9/11 inquiry committee report has said.
The report said that a high ranking al-Qaeda operations official, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, currently in US custody, had admitted during interrogation that the network was planning other attacks along with those on September 11, 2001. He had put a proposal before terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden to try and recruit a Saudi Air Force pilot, who would take a combat plane and use it in an air attack on the Israeli resort city of Eilat, the report said. The bipartisan report does not specify what type of attack Sheikh Mohammed intended or what came as a result of his proposal, local media reported.
The inquiry report also elaborates on the story of an Israeli flying on American Airlines flight 11 who attempted to stop the hijackers from breaking into the cockpit before the plane plunged into the World Trade Centre. According to the report, Daniel Levin, 31, seated in first class, on seeing two of the hijackers - group leader Mohammed Atta and Abdul Aziz al-Omri - getting up in order to enter the cockpit, tried to stop them. His efforts were in vain as a third hijacker sitting behind him, Satam al-Sukami, stabbed him. It is not known if Levin was killed, but according to a telephone conversation from a stewardess aboard the plane, Levin was badly injured in the stabbing. |