Washington ? The CIA warned as early as 1995 that Islamic extremists were likely to attack U.S. aviation, Washington landmarks or Wall Street and by 1997 had identified Osama bin Laden as an emerging threat on U.S. soil, a senior intelligence official said Thursday.

The official took the rare step of disclosing information in the closely held National Intelligence Estimate for those two years to counter criticisms in a staff report released Wednesday by the independent commission examining pre-Sept. 11, 2001, intelligence failures.

That staff report accused the CIA of failing to recognize al-Qaida as a formal terrorist organization until 1999 and mostly regarding bin Laden as a financier instead of a terrorist leader during much of the 1990s.

But the U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the 1997 National Intelligence Estimate produced by the CIA mentioned bin Laden by name as an emerging terrorist threat on its first page. The National Intelligence Estimate is distributed to the president and senior executive branch and congressional intelligence officials.

The 1997 assessment, which remains classified, “identified bin Laden and his followers and threats they were making and said it might portend attacks inside the United States,” the official said.

Philip Zelikow, executive director of the 9-11 commission, confirmed the 1997 warning about bin Laden but said it was only two sentences long and lacked any strategic analysis on how to address the threat.

The intelligence official also said that while the 1995 intelligence assessment did not mention bin Laden or al-Qaida by name, it clearly warned that Islamic terrorists were intent on striking specific targets inside the United States like those hit on 9-11.

The report specifically warned that civil aviation, Washington landmarks and buildings on Wall Street were at the greatest risk of a terror attack.