The perfect plot

9:45 am - By RAYMOND WHITAKER

Somewhere, almost certainly in the Middle East or Central Asia, a roomful of men must have been celebrating wildly this morning (NZT) as they saw the greatest act of terrorism in history go precisely as they had planned it.

While the rest of the world watched their television sets in horror, they would have been delighted at the success of an operation which demanded precision, expertise and co-ordination of the highest order.

Attack timeline

(Times are local time in New York. New Zealand is 16 hours ahead of New York.)

* 08.58 Hijacked jet crashes into south tower of World Trade Centre.

* 09.16 Second hijacked plane crashes into north tower of World Trade Centre

* 09.43 Plane crashes into the Pentagon.

* 10.07 South tower of World Trade Centre tower collapses.

* 10.25 Car bomb explodes outside State Department in Washington.

* 10.27 North tower of World Trade Centre collapses.

* 10.30 747 crashes near Pittsburgh

According to some sources, there had been warnings of threats to American interests abroad, but they were so unspecific as to have been useless. The CIA and the FBI appear to have been unable to penetrate the world in which the terrorists operated.

Porter Goss, chair of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said: "We are scrambling all the time to assess information about people who could do harm to the United States and its people ... We will have to rethink how we do business and deal with this kind of threat."

Before retaliating, it was vital to get accurate information, so that any strike should "not provoke incidents that are unwarranted".

Before yesterday the worst act of terrorism on American soil was home-grown: the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.

Timothy McVeigh has been executed for that crime, but the degree of fanaticism in today's atrocity, which must have required large numbers of perpetrators willing to sacrifice their own lives, tends to turn suspicion abroad.

America's unremittinng support for Israel in its bloody, year-long conflict with the Palestinians is sure to be seen as one possible cause.

Iraqi revenge for the Gulf War is another possibility.

The man certain to be regarded as the prime suspect is Osama bin Laden, the Saudi Arabian-born Islamic radical and multi-millionaire accused by the Americans of being a terrorist mastermind.

Next in line might be Saddam Hussein of Iraq, believed to be harbouring one of the perpetrators of the last terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Baghdad was accused of extensive links to the last terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, when a 1,200lb (2645.5 kg) bomb was left in a truck in the complex's parking garage.

It exploded on 26 February 1993, killing six people and injuring 1,000.

Abdul Rahman Yasin, an Iraqi government employee indicted for the bombing, fled the US and is believed to be sheltering in Iraq.

In 1993 Ramzi Yousef, according to the judge who sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole for masterminding the bombing, planned to topple one tower of the World Trade Centre into the other, and to release a cloud of deadly cyanide gas.

He failed in that aim – the bomb was not powerful enough, and the gas evaporated in the heat of the explosion. He was caught before he could carry out another plan, to blow up 11 US commercial aircraft in one day.

Now others have succeeded in carrying out much of what he intended. In the absence of state support from a country such as Iraq, one of the few other people apparently capable of carrying out such an attack is Mr bin Laden, who has taken refuge with the hardline Islamist Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

He is accused of instigating the almost simultaneous destruction of two US embassies in east Africa just over three years ago in which more than 200 people died.

That attack called for cunning and split-second timing to penetrate security barriers; so did another with which he has been linked by the US, the suicide bombing of the USS Cole which killed 17 American servicemen in the port of Aden last October.

Only two weeks ago, Indian police accused Mr bin Laden of plotting to bomb the US embassy in New Delhi. And 10 days ago the intelligence services of Britain, Israel and the US were alerted when one of the passengers on a plane which crash-landed at Malaga airport turned out to be a suspected bagman for Mr bin Laden.

They lost him after he was released from hospital following treatment for minor injuries. The intelligence agencies feared the man was in Spain to forge an alliance between the Saudi radical and Russian mafia bosses now sheltering on the Costa del Sol.

The name of Osama bin Laden also crops up in connection with a failed plot to blow up Los Angeles airport.

Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian, was stopped with explosives in his car as he tried to cross into the US from Canada late in 1999.

Police found a business card with a London telephone number. That led to another Algerian, Abu Doha, 37, known as "the Doctor", who has been in British custody since he was arrested at Heathrow while trying to board a flight to Saudi Arabia this year.

According to American prosecutors seeking his extradition, "the Doctor" supervised a cell of Algerian terrorists who trained at camps set up in Afghanistan by Mr bin Laden.

Mr Ressam, who is co-operating with the US authorities, said he received a year's training in Afghanistan from 1998 to 1999. He was sent back to Canada as part of a "sleeper cell".

- INDEPENDENT

The New Zealand Herald will publish a special print edition with coverage of the terrorist attacks. It will be available in Auckland from noon today.

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The fatal flights

Emergency telephone numbers for friends and family of victims

These numbers are valid for calls from within New Zealand, but may be overloaded at the moment.

United Airlines: 0168 1800 932 8555

American Airlines: 0168 1800 245 0999

NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade special hotline: 0800 872 111

Online database for friends and family