Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is taken out of the picture.

I've been wanting to do a timeline for a long while, but to be honest I don't have that much in-depth knowledge about history. I plan on doing a lot of research, but I'd still like to limit the PoD to sometime within the last decade or two to avoid being too out of my depth- like September 11th. At first I thought this must be an overused one, but looking through the site I don't see any popular 9/11 timelines.

The trouble I'm having is; how do I make the attacks not happen? I did some research, and it turns out the plan of attack is extremely complicated, and decentralized enough so that I can't find a single point of departure that will get rid of all the terrorists/planes.

What if, at some time during his travels in 1995, Mohammed is killed? Let's say, a car crash. Do his plans never come to fruition? Does bin Laden get the idea from someone else, and the attacks occur at a different date or? Or does he attack some other major urban area?

Tell me if I'm being incredibly ignorant, or if I posted this in the wrong place. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
 
http://www.amazon.com/Looming-Tower...=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268864533&sr=8-9

This might be a good place to start. It's been awhile since I read it, but if I recall correctly, he says what got the track to the attack started was when Mohammed Atta hooked up with the planners. Before then it was mostly just planning with no real preparation.

BTW, I have actually worked on a timeline where the 9/11 attacks were attempted, but were stopped by US intelligence services. Mind you it is for a fanfiction story I write on occasion so I'm not sure how much my research would help you.
 
Sorry to change the topic after you gave me that very helpful piece of information, but I came across something interesting that gave me a different PoD idea. In 2000, foreign operatives working for the CIA fired an RPG at bin Laden's convoy- but it hit the wrong vehicle.

What if the their aim had been just a bit better? Without Osama, what would happen to al-Qaeda? Would they simply fall apart, and terrorism never quite gain the momentum it did in OTL? Would they continue working to expel western nations from the Middle East, but at a more contained, local scale? Or would bin Laden even matter: would they just implement the same plans without his leadership?
 
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