To his dying day, even under seige, al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden urged his followers to kill more Jews, reports the Associated Press.
Documents seized in the 2011 raid on Bin Laden’s Abbottabad, Pakistan compound and recently released to the public show that the terrorist leader remained steadfast in his mission of spreading Jihad.
A collection of letters, videos and reports obtained during the mission that took Bin Laden’s life reveal his commitment to al-Qaeda’s mission: “In the name of God, find a way to kill Americans. Kill Europeans. Kill Jews.”
103 documents were declassified and publicized Wednesday in the form of online images after review by government agencies, in accordance with a 2014 law. According to the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, there are hundreds more, including books, US think tank reports and other materials, which will also be reviewed for possible declassification.
Among the missives is a videotaped will, in which he urges one of his wives, should she remarry upon his death, to choose to remain beside him in paradise, and to send their son into battle. He also tells his followers to focus their fight on America, not on each other.
“Uproot the obnoxious tree by concentrating on its American trunk,” Bin Laden wrote in one letter to followers in North Africa, instructing them not to get distracted by scuffles with local security forces or infighting with other Muslims.
The documents were translated by US intelligence officials, and contain a mix of business and professional language with fiery religious appeals and updates on terror plots. One document, a fill-in-the-blank al-Qaeda application features ordinary questions about personal history and hobbies alongside questions such as “Do you wish to execute a suicide operation?” and requests for emergency contact in the event of martyrdom.
Another letter, this one addressed to Bin Laden in 2007, asked the beleaguered leader to disavow “the ongoing catastrophes and disasters” committed by al-Qaeda in Iraq, the forerunners of today’s Islamic State (ISIS), as they ignored orders and struck out against their fellow Muslims.
“If you still can, then this is your last chance to remedy the Jihad breakdown that is about to take place in Iraq,” the letter warns. Although Bin Laden accepted the advice of the Jihad and Reform Front who wrote the letter, upon Bin Laden’s death, ISIS managed to take over large swathes of Iraq and Syria, and is currently one of the region’s most persistent threats.
An undated “Report on External Operations” presents Bin Laden with excuses for missing al-Qaeda’s bloody goals for that year, including orders to kill Jews.
“First of them was bad luck and God wasn’t on our side,” the report complains, going on to mention a lack of well-trained personnel, poor communications, trouble with transportation, insufficient weapons and difficulty evading security forces as other reasons for failure.
“We are not asking for a convenient atmosphere to work … but God knows that we have not done our best to create the correct atmosphere of work to reach our goal,” the report says.
