Story Highlights
- Historical event
- 6 January 1995
- It was a big terrorist project, which included the assassination of Pope John Paul II, placing of the bombs on as many as 11 passenger aircraft and crashing an airplane into the CIA headquarters.
On this day the police accidentally uncovered a terrorist plot named Bojinka, before the conspirators managed to put it into action. It was a big terrorist project, which included the assassination of Pope John Paul II, placing of the bombs on as many as 11 passenger aircrafts and crashing an airplane into the CIA headquarters.
The assassination of the Pope was to be carried out during his visit to the Philippines for the 1995 World Youth Day celebrations. The Suicide bomber was to be dressed as a priest, get close to the Pope and then detonate the bomb. Plans of the assassination were discovered when a fire broke out in the apartment where the terrorists were staying. The apartment was located in Manila, the Philippines, where the Pope was due to arrive six days later – on 12 January 1995. The Philippine National Police discovered the whole conspiracy on the basis of documents which were found in a partially burnt-out apartment.
The leaders of the conspirators who planned the entire operation were Islamic terrorists Ramzi Jusef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They were both linked to Al-Qaeda. After their plans were revealed, they refrained from implementing them. Today both of them are in captivity in the United States, with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being imprisoned in the infamous U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo, Cuba.
