UK was 'in favour' of neutralising Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks: Report

On September 11, 2001, the world watched in horror as the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City collapsed after being struck by commercial airliners hijacked by terrorists. The attacks, which were carried out by the al-Qaeda terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden, claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people and marked the beginning of the United States' longest war.

But new information has come to light indicating that the UK was in favor of "whacking" Osama bin Laden months before the 9/11 attacks, as per a report from Times of Israel. Confidential government documents from December 2000 reportedly reveal that Sir John Sawers, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair's foreign affairs adviser, briefed Blair ahead of a meeting with then-US President Bill Clinton. In the documents, Sawers notes that al-Qaeda was suspected of bombing the USS Cole in October of that year, but that the US did not have "proof" that bin Laden was responsible and would not launch airstrikes until they had a "smoking gun."

UK was in favour of neutralising Laden before 9/11 even occured

"We're all in favor of whacking [bin Laden], but need a bit of notice and a chance to influence the timing," Sawers said. Born out of the 1980s war against the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan, al-Qaeda grew into a significant threat to the US, culminating in the 9/11 attacks. The group declared war against the US in 1996, but it wasn't until the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 that the threat became real.

The 9/11 attacks led to the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the war that would ultimately end last summer with the military's airlift from Kabul. In August of this year, a CIA drone strike in Afghanistan killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was an architect of the 9/11 attacks. The revelation that the UK was in favor of taking action against bin Laden months before the 9/11 attacks raises questions about what was known about the threat posed by al-Qaeda at the time and what actions were taken to prevent the attacks. It also highlights the longstanding efforts to combat the terrorist group and its leaders, including the successful operation to locate and kill bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011.