WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday released 17 documents recovered from Osama Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound in the raid that killed the Al-Qaeda chief a year ago.
The White House allowed the declassified documents to be published online by the Combating Terrorism Center at the West Point military academy. The papers include letters or draft letters dated from September 2006 to April 2011, a total of 175 pages in the original Arabic.
The documents recovered show that Osama bin Laden was apprehensive about dysfunction in his network and the loss of trust from Muslims he wished to incite against their government and the West.
Al- Qaeda was also concerned with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attacking ordinary Pakistani muslim citizens. A letter regarding this was written by Al-Qaeda representatives to Hakimullah Mehsud.
The letter dated 3 December 2010 was critical of the ideology and tactics of the TTP and made clear that Al-Qaeda’s senior leaders had serious concerns about the TTP’s trajectory inside Pakistan.
Despite problems within the organization, the documents indicate that bin Laden was focused on attacking US nationals and coming up with plots, to assassinate US leaders.
Osama bin Laden wished specially to target airplanes carrying Gen. David Petraeus and even President Barack Obama, reasoning that an assassination would elevate an “utterly unprepared” Vice President Joe Biden into the presidency and plunge the US into crisis