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US releases documents recovered from Osama bin Laden raid US releases more than 100 documents recovered from Osama bin Laden raid
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US intelligence officials have released a collection of documents they said were recovered during the 2011 raid on the compound in Pakistan where US forces killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. US intelligence officials have released more than 100 letters and documents found during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, revealing the al-Qaida leader’s intense fear of drones and surveillance, and his continued preoccupation with launching attacks against the west.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a statement that the release of the documents followed a “rigorous” review by US government agencies and “aligns with the president’s call for increased transparency consistent with national security prerogatives”. Alongside scores of declassified Arabic documents – mainly correspondence with key lieutenants, associates and groups spread around the Islamic world – the Office of the Director of National Intelligence also released the contents of Bin Laden’s library, including works by Islamist thinkers, but also English language books on history and current affairs by authors including Noam Chomsky and Bob Woodward.
It said the 2014 Intelligence Authorization Act required the office to conduct a review of the documents for release. The documents were released after a “rigorous interagency review” led by the CIA, said Jeffrey Anchukaitis, spokesman for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Anchukaitis said the review continues, but that “given the large number of documents to review, and the increasing public demand to review those documents”, the White House asked for them to be released as they were ready.
“It is in the interest of the American public for citizens, academics, journalists and historians to have the opportunity to read and understand Bin Laden’s documents,” US House of Representatives intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes said in a statement. The documents’ release follows a high-profile and intensely debated article by the veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, which accused the Obama administration of misleading the public over events before, during and after the May 2011 raid that killed Bin Laden.
The released material includes a variety of declassified documents, a list of English language books recovered from the compound and material published by other militant groups. But Anchukaitis denied that the release of documents was related to the Obama administration’s pushback against Hersh’s report.
Alongside scores of Arabic documents – mainly correspondence with key lieutenants, associates and groups spread around the Islamic world – are the contents of Bin Laden’s bookshelves. They reveal an eclectic reader with a predictable taste for classics of jihadi literature, a deep interest in both US foreign policy and a keen desire to see how his own organisation was being portrayed in the international media. The declassified documents reveal Bin Laden’s abiding concern with operational security. In letters, he tells his lieutenants not to communicate by email and tells them not to gather in large groups, lest they become the target of a drone strike.
There are two works by Bin Laden’s mentor, Abdallah Azzam: Join the Caravan and The Defence of, Muslim Lands, both of which remain hugely influential among radical Islamists. Azzam led Arab “mujahideen” during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and laid down fundamental principles of violent Islamic extremism. The internet “is OK for general messages,” Bin Laden writes his deputies, “but the secrecy of the mujahideen does not allow its usage and couriers are the only way”. In other documents he advises members of al-Qaida to destroy cellphone Sim cards, to keep prescriptions with them to avoid frequent visits to doctors, and to learn Urdu because “it is also of extreme importance, security-wise”.
In one missive, he worries over the possibility that a wiretap could be concealed in his wife’s clothing.
“Before Um Hamza arrives here, it is necessary for her to leave everything behind, including clothes, books, everything that she had in Iran,” Bin Laden wrote in a September 2010 letter. “Everything that a needle might possibly penetrate.
“Some chips have been lately developed for eavesdropping, so small they could easily be hidden inside a syringe,” he said, adding that “Iranians are not to be trusted” and a listening device could be planted in his wife’s belongings.
Bin Laden also fixates on his al-Qaida heirs, including how to get his son Hamza into Pakistan, and about what precautions the group can take against drone strikes.
In other letters, he pleaded with his lieutenants to turn away from internecine and regional attacks and to concentrate on major plots against the US.
“The focus should be on killing and fighting the American people and their representatives,” Bin Laden wrote in one of the documents. “We should stop operations against the army and the police in all regions, especially Yemen.”
In one undated report, he wrote of “a number of brothers” sent to attack Britain, Russia and Denmark, including a plan to blow up a gas line or an American embassy. He issued orders on a granular level of transportation and explosives manufacturing, and blamed “bad luck” for the failed plots, saying “God wasn’t on our side.”
When uprisings erupted in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and around the Middle East, he urged al-Qaida leaders to seize the moment of “revolution” to recruit young people around the region to his cause.
Bin Laden also exhorted al-Qaida to move away from small, local attacks in the region, but found himself marginalized within the organization, as lone wolf, “individual jihad” attacks gained increasing prominence for other al-Qaida leaders.
In another document, he cites the unpopularity of the Vietnam war in the US and says that the only way to change American policy is to “start striking America to force it to abandon these rulers and leave the Muslims alone”.
The titles included in Bin Laden’s personal library reveal an eclectic reader with a predictable taste for classics of jihadi literature, a deep interest in both US foreign policy and a keen desire to see how his own organisation was being portrayed in the international media.
There are two works by Bin Laden’s mentor, Abdallah Azzam: Join the Caravan and The Defence of Muslim Lands, both of which remain hugely influential among radical Islamists. Azzam led Arab “mujahideen” during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan and laid down fundamental principles of violent Islamic extremism.
Bin Laden also had a copy of The America I Have Seen, a vitriolic memoir of a short trip to the US by the Egyptian thinker and activist Syed Qutb, considered the godfather of modern jihadi thinking.Bin Laden also had a copy of The America I Have Seen, a vitriolic memoir of a short trip to the US by the Egyptian thinker and activist Syed Qutb, considered the godfather of modern jihadi thinking.
There also appear to be a dozen or more books published by the international Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir. The collection also included several works on international relations and current affairs, including Obama’s Wars by Bob Woodward, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky, and the Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast.
However, much of the reading appears to be broader, ranging from Yale academic Paul Kennedy’s Rise and Fall of the Great Powers to a work by Noam Chomsky. Shelves are devoted to specialist publications – notably those of the US Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) – on radical Islam. These included book-length analyses of divisions among jhadi thinkers and a complete sets of documents seized from al-Qaida in Iraq and published by the CTC. The library includes Bloodlines of the Illuminati, by Fritz Springmeier, which claims to reveal the secret network of power-brokers who rule the world, and has often been cited by 9/11 “truther” conspiracy theorists.
US forces killed Bin Laden, leader of the militant organization responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the United States in which about 3,000 people died, in a raid on a compound in Abbottabad, a Pakistani city that also was home to a Pakistani military base. The collection of documents also includes letters by Bin Laden to his wives, in which he assures them of his love and asks after his children’s health. In one he asks that his wife take care of his daughters, “and be careful of bad company for them, especially after puberty”.
Nunes said Wednesday’s release of 86 new reports, bringing the total number of declassified reports to 120, is “a step in the right direction”. He added: “I look forward to the conclusion of the ongoing efforts to declassify the hundreds of remaining Abbottabad reports to meet congressional requirements.” “If you can marry them to mujahideen, then that is best, or else to good people,” he wrote.
The documents’ release follows a high-profile and intensely debated investigative report from Seymour Hersh in the London Review of Books which accused the Obama administration of substantially misleading the public about what actually happened before, during and after the May 2011 raid that killed Bin Laden. Another declassified document is apparently an application for membership in al-Qaida, and features such questions as: “What is your favorite material: science or literature?”, “Do you wish to execute a suicide operation?” and “Any hobbies or pastimes?”
But the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which on Wednesday published the documents on one of its websites, strenuously denied that the release of the Abbottabad documents was related to the Obama administration’s pushback against Hersh’s report.
“With DNI approval, CIA spearheaded a rigorous interagency review of the classified documents under the auspices of White House’s National Security Council staff. The effort began last summer and continues on as we speak. The 2014 [intelligence bill] added urgency to the effort,” Jeffrey Anchukaitis, spokesman for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, told the Guardian.
“Given the large number of documents to review, and the increasing public demand to review those documents, this winter the White House asked CIA to declassify and the ODNI release documents as they were ready.”
Notable by its absence in the document trove is Bin Laden’s collection of pornography.Notable by its absence in the document trove is Bin Laden’s collection of pornography.
At the time of the Abbottabad raid, Navy Seals reportedly uncovered a “fairly extensive” cache of pornography, to include modern-seeming videos.At the time of the Abbottabad raid, Navy Seals reportedly uncovered a “fairly extensive” cache of pornography, to include modern-seeming videos.
Clapper’s office confirmed that the documents recovered from the compound included “some pornographic material”. But Anchukaitis said the US would not release the pornography “due to the nature of their contents”. He declined to to give any further details. Clapper’s office confirmed that the documents recovered from the compound included “some pornographic material”. But Anchukaitis said the US would not release the pornography “due to the nature of their contents”. He declined to give any further details.