Skipping a primer on the Prudential ...
As unspectacular as it might seem to most Americans, the Prudential Plaza building is a site of intense interest to Osama bin Laden and his operatives. Beginning in 2000, al-Qaeda operatives inside the U.S. conducted detailed surveillance of the Prudential building, with the apparent intent of destroying it and killing the civilians who work there. They took multiple photographs of the building and observed the parking garage underneath. One report outlined possible methods for carrying out an attack. Written in English, the report noted that it might be difficult to drive trucks or vans into the parking lot. Black limousines, however, could approach without much trouble. The report proposed acquiring a limo, gutting everything except the front seats and presumably filling it with explosives. It then provided details on the New Jersey Transit rail system and nearby PATH trains and maps of the network and train timetables--suggesting that instead of deploying a suicide-bomb squad, al-Qaeda may have been exploring ways to escape after pulling off the attack.
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