The al Qaeda plot to kill Bill Clinton that history nearly forgot

investing.com:

By Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Air Force One with President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton aboard was on its final approach to Manila on Nov. 23, 1996, when their U.S. Secret Service detail received alarming intelligence: an explosive device had been planted on the motorcade route into the Philippines capital.

Acting swiftly, the agents switched to a back-up route to the Clintons' hotel, foiling a suspected al Qaeda attempt to assassinate the president of the United States minutes after his arrival for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

As the motorcade crawled along the traffic-clogged alternate route, Filipino security officers recovered a powerful bomb on a bridge the convoy would have taken and an SUV abandoned nearby containing AK-47 assault rifles, four retired agents told Reuters.

The assassination attempt, which appears to be one of al Qaeda's earliest attempts to strike the U.S., was mentioned briefly in books published in 2010 and 2019.

Now, eight retired secret service agents – seven of whom were in Manila – have given Reuters the most detailed account to date of the failed plot.

Reuters found no evidence of a U.S. government investigation into the attempt on Clinton's life. The news agency also could not independently determine if intelligence agencies conducted classified probes.

For some of the Secret Service agents interviewed by Reuters, the events in Manila have left unanswered questions.

«I always wondered why I wasn't kept back to stay in Manila to monitor any investigation,» said Gregory Glod, the lead Secret Service intelligence agent in Manila and one of seven agents who spoke out for the first time. «Instead, they flew me out the day after Clinton left.»

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