WASHINGTON -- When al-Qaida leaders decided an attack on a U.S. military shuttle bus was not spectacular enough, the Singapore-based operatives who proposed the idea meticulously planned to hit more daring targets.
They laid out plans to blow up embassies of the United States and three other nations and had a chemist buy four tons of ammonium nitrate -- four times the amount of explosive that Timothy McVeigh used to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building.
In chilling detail, Philippine intelligence reports obtained by The Associated Press also revealed plans to attack U.S. corporations and warships in Singapore and crash a hijacked plane at the country's international airport.
The embassy attacks were foiled by U.S. investigators and allies in Southeast Asia as they entered the final stages -- a mostly untold success during the war on terrorism.
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