BERLIN, Dec 7: Western secret services knew as far back as 1995 that Osama bin Laden planned to attack civilian sites using commercial passenger planes, German newspaper Die Welt said on Friday.

Quoting sources close to western intelligence services, Die Welt said that authorities did not take seriously the threat of the plan, known as Project Bojinka.

The plan was discovered in Jan 1995 by Philippine police who were investigating a possible attack against Pope John Paul II on a visit to Manila.

They found details of the plan in a computer seized in an apartment used by three men who were part of Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.

It provided for 11 planes to be exploded simultaneously by bombs placed on board, but also in an alternative form for several planes flying to the United States to be hijacked and flown into civilian targets.

Among targets mentioned was the World Trade Center in New York. Other targets mentioned were CIA offices in Virginia and the Sears Tower in Chicago, Die Welt said.

The plot resurfaced during the trial in New York in 1997 of Ramsi Youssef, the mastermind of the attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

Die Welt said the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and CIA would have known about the plan at the latest at this time.—AFP