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Osama Bin Laden's Declassified Letters: Al Qaeda Worries, Wanting Biden As President
By
Jen Chung
Published May 3, 2012
Modified May 3, 2012
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Department of Defense
By
Jen Chung
Published May 3, 2012
Modified May 3, 2012
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When he wasn't watching porn in his Abbottabad hideout, Osama bin Laden was writing a lot of letters. The Army just released declassified letters from the terrorist leader's Pakistan house. The letters—about 175 pages in Arabic (or 197 pages in English)—were written between September 2006 and April 2011, and feature thoughts penned by numerous Al Qaeda leaders, including bin laden. The Combatting Terrorism Center writes, "In contrast to his public statements that focused on the injustice of those he believed to be the 'enemies' of Muslims, namely corrupt 'apostate' Muslim rulers and their Western 'overseers,' the focus of Bin Ladin’s private letters is Muslims’ suffering at the hands of his jihadi 'brothers'."
Further, "He is at pain advising them to abort domestic attacks that cause Muslim civilian casualties and focus on the United States, 'our desired goal.' Bin Ladin’s frustration with regional jihadi groups and his seeming inability to exercise control over their actions and public statements is the most compelling story to be told on the basis of the 17 de-classified documents." You can download the documents, Letters From Abbottabad, here.
According to the AP, "bin Laden remained focused on attacking Americans and coming up with plots, however improbable, to kill U.S. leaders. He wished especially 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 U.S. into crisis."
And adviser Adam Gadahn gave bin Laden an analysis of U.S. media: Regarding CNN, "[S]eems to be in cooperation with the government more than the others (except Fox News of course)," while ABC "Could be one of the best channels, as far as we are concerned... It is interested in al Qaeda issues, particularly the journalist Brian Ross, who is specialized in terrorism." Overall, Gadahn wrote, "From the professional point of view, they are all on one level except (Fox News) channel which falls into the abyss as you know, and lacks neutrality too." Gadahn also wrote, "I used to think that MSNBC channel may be good and neutral a bit," but then MSNBC fired Keith Olbermann. (Olbermann is taking pains to point out that Gadahn wrote that, not bin Laden.)
In one letter dated a week before his death, bin Laden wrote about the Arab Spring and had instructions like, "Enclosed is a statement to the nation in regard to the revolutions. Please review it and if there are remarks on parts of it by the brothers then there is no problem in revising it. Then send it to al-Jazeera Network, noting that I have enclosed a copy of it in a new card (TN: thumb drive or memory card) with nothing else on it, so please expedite its release and broadcast due to the importance and developments of the events."
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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