Osama Bin Laden-controlled terrorists came within minutes of assassinating former US President Bill Clinton during his 1996 Philippines visit, a new book has revealed. According to The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs Starr, written by American law professor Ken Gormley, Clinton was saved shortly before his car was to drive over a bridge in Manila where a bomb had been planted. The attack came during Clinton’s visit to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Manila in 1996. He was scheduled to visit a local politician, his route taking him across a bridge in central Manila. However, as Clinton’s motorcade was about to set off, Secret Service officers received a “crackly message in one earpiece” saying intelligence agents had picked up a message suggesting an attack was imminent. The transmission used the words “bridge” and “wedding” – terrorist code words for assassination. The motorcade was quickly re-routed and American agents later discovered a bomb had been planted under the bridge. Further investigation “revealed that it had been masterminded by a Saudi terrorist living in Afghanistan – a man named Osama bin Laden”. “The thwarted assassination attempt was never made public. It remained top secret except to select members of the US intelligence community,” Professor Gormley writes in the book. A Secret Service spokesman refused to comment on the allegations. Marisa Porges, a former government counter-terrorism advisor, said the assassination plot, if true, would suggest al-Qaeda was more developed prior to 9/11 than earlier thought.