A decade before 9/11, plans to use aircraft for terror strikes were mooted by the ISI-backed Punjab terrorist group to target India, a former top intelligence official said.
A Babbar Khalsa terrorist had admitted that he was asked by Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence to join a flying club and crash his plane on the Bombay High oil platform during a solo flight, former additional secretary in the Research and Analyses Wing, B Raman said.
"What was new about the 9/11 strikes was the dramatic manner in which this modus operandi was executed for carrying out well-orchestrated attacks on the nerve centres of US power," Raman said.
In his latest book 'Terrorism: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow', Raman warns that mushrooming of airlines, rapid rise in the number of private planes owned by corporates and high-end