US 'knew' air attack coming

US officials knew months before September 11, 2001 that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network was planning to use aircraft to carry out a terrorist attack, a former FBI translator has alleged.

Sibel Edmonds told the Independent newspaper, in an interview published on Friday, that a claim by US President George W Bush's national security advisor Condoleezza Rice that there had been no such warnings was "an outrageous lie".

"President Bush said they had no specific information about September 11 and that is accurate but only because he said September 11," Edmonds told the Independent.

There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.