London: In a massive failure of Intelligence described by diplomatic sources as "warning fatigue", the US and United Nations ignored warnings from a secret Taleban emissary that Osama bin Laden was planning a huge attack on America weeks before the horrific strikes that actually brought down the twin WTC towers last year.

The warnings were delivered by an aide of Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the then Taleban Foreign Minister, who was known to be deeply unhappy with foreign militants, including the Arabs, in Afghanistan, 'The Independent' daily reported on September 7.

At the same time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) failed to take seriously warnings that Islamic fundamentalist students had enrolled in flight schools across the US, it said.

Muttawakil learnt of the planned attacks on America not from other Taleban leaders, but from the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Tahir Yildash. The organisation was one of the fundamentalist groups that had found refuge on Afghan soil, lending fighters for the Taleban's war with the Northern Alliance and benefiting from good relations with al-Qaida in its fight against the Uzbek government.

Muttawakil, now in American custody, believed Taleban's protection of bin Laden and other al-Qaida elements would lead to destruction of Afghanistan by the US military. He told his aide, "The guests are going to destroy the guesthouse."

The minister then ordered him to alert the US and UN about what was going to happen. But in a massive failure of Intelligence, the message was disregarded because of what sources described as "warning fatigue".

Muttawakil's aide, who stayed on in Kabul and requested anonymity, told the newspaper how he had been despatched by Muttawakil to alert first the Americans and then the UN about the coming calamity of September 11.

The minister learnt in July last year that bin Laden was planning a "huge attack" on targets inside America, he said.

According to the emissary, Muttawakil emerged from a one-to-one meeting with Yildash looking shocked and troubled.

Until then, the Foreign Minister, who had disapproved of the destruction of the Buddhist statues in Bamian earlier in the year, had no inkling from others in the Taleban leadership of what bin Laden was planning.

"At first Muttawakil wouldn't say why he was so upset," said the aide. "Then it all came out. Yildash had revealed that Osama bin Laden was going to launch an attack on the US.

At the same time 19 al-Qaida were in US waiting to launch what would be the deadliest foreign attack on American mainland.

The emissary went first to the Americans, travelling across the border to meet the consul general, David Katz, in the Pakistani border town of Peshawar, in the third week of July 2001, the newspaper said.

Another US official was also present possibly from the Intelligence services. Katz, who now works at the American embassy in Eritrea, declined to talk about the meeting. But other US sources said the warning was not passed on.

A diplomatic source said that the Afghan aide did not reveal that the warning was from Muttawakil, a factor that might have led the Americans to downgrade it.

PTI