US President George W Bush has said that the United States and partner countries had thwarted an Al-Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest building in Los Angeles in 2002.
The White House had already described the plot – which targeted the 1,017-foot Library Tower in Los Angeles - in October 2005, but Mr Bush's speech provided more details because of recently declassified information.
The president said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - sometimes called the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks - planned to have terrorists hijack an airplane, use shoe bombs to breach the cockpit doors and fly the jet into the building.
Mr Bush said that instead of using Arab hijackers, as in the attacks on New York and Washington, the plot planned to make use of young men from southeast Asia.
