The Bojinka Plot, a Serbo-Croatian word meaning “big noise”, was an intent to plant bombs in 10 commercial flights from South East Asia, Indonesia and the Philippines, to USA and to explode them in the air scheduled to the 01/22/1995.
The Bojinka plot evolved from the idea of Abdul Hakim Murad and his friend Ramzi Yousef in 1993 in Pakistan to load a light aircraft with explosives and to crush it into a high profile target such as the White House or the Pentagon in Washington.
Still in Pakistan, in early 1994, Ramzi Yousef tried to smuggle a small explosive charge in a toy on a flight to Bangkok through a South African Muslim Istaique Parker that regretted his involvement and became later an informant to the USA .
Ramzy Yousef and Abdul Hakim Murad fled to Manila, Philippines, and there contacted the Abu Sayyaf group. Khalid Shaik Mohammed through his connections with Wali Khan Amin Shah from Afghanistan, the Konsojaya Trading Company and Mohammed Jamal Khalifa a Saudi Arabia businessman raised the money for the Bojinka plot.
On the 12/01/1994, while in the Philippines, and as a check towards Bojinka plot as well as the inspection of general security in the airports, Ramzi Yousef purchased a flight ticket on flight 434, Philippines Airlines to Tokyo, through Cebu in east Philippines, under an Italian name of Armaldo Forlani. Ramzi Yousef concealed an explosive charge in the heel of his shoe and extracted the charge from his shoe heel in airplanes’ toilet and stuck it under his seat. He left the plane in Sabo and his seat was taken by a Japanese person - Haruki Ikegami - who was killed as a result of the explosion while the airplane was in the air. The pilot managed to land in Japan even though there was a hole in the planes’ floor.
In Manila, 01/06/1995, while Ramzi Yousef prepared explosives with his friend Abdul Hakim Murad , in a hideout, mixing fluid components for a charge an accident happened causing thick smoke. This alarmed police forces who arrested Abdul Hakim Murad and confiscated Ramzi Yousef s’ private computer. The arrest uncovered the Bojinka plot.
According to the investigation of Abdul Hakim Murad and the evidence in Ramzi Yousef s’ laptop a team of terrorists, among them Abdul Hakim Murad ( code name “Obaid”) and Ramzi Yousef (code name “Zyed”), intended to buy tickets in American airlines companies with a transition landing still in Asia, so there was no need for an American visa. Their intent was to plant the bombs inside life jackets placed under the seats and then to fly to Lahore in Pakistan.
The bombs were to be activated by a timer when all 10 aircrafts were in the air.
