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Bin Laden believed shoe-bombings would demoralize West and ruin US economy | Osama Bin Laden believed that coordinated shoe-bomb attacks
on US-bound jetliners after 9/11 would have demoralized the West and destroyed the U.S. economy, according to a court testimony. Saajid Muhammad Badat, an admitted
al Qaeda operative, testified through pre-recorded videotape about his connections
with bin Laden in Afghanistan just weeks after the September 11 attacks, New York
Post reports. Badat said he met face-to-face with bin Laden in Afghanistan after
being asked to carry out a suicide bombing of a U.S. airliner. The 33- tear-old
Briton said that Laden explained 'the justification' for the planned shoe bomb
attacks. "So after the Sept. 11 attacks, this operation will ruin the aviation
industry, and, in turn, the whole [American] economy will come down," bin Laden
said, according to Badat. Badat and his co-conspirator Richard Reid were convicted
of the shoe-bombing plot, but Badat said that he backed out at the last moment.
The pre-recorded testimony in Brooklyn federal court was shown during the trial
of Adis Medunjanin, 28, who is accused of being part of an al Qaeda plot to launch
a series of suicide bombings in New York City 's subways. Badat also revealed
that, in November 2001, Qaeda's leadership asked him to help Malaysian terrorists,
who were planning a shoe-bomb attack aboard a commercial airliner. Badat is serving
a prison term after pleading guilty in London to conspiring to destroy an aircraft.
During the trial another convict, Bryant Neal Vinas, an Qaeda convert, who was
part of an aborted mortar attack against US forces in Afghanistan , took the stand
as government witness.
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