Osama bin Laden Raid Documents Released by US Intelligence
New documents that were found at Osama bin Laden’s secret compound in Pakistan during the 2011 raid have been released by the US intelligence officials.
Osama bin Laden was killed during the 2011 operation. During the same operation the US special forces recovered the documents that officials have branded Bin Laden’s Bookshelf.
As well as Arabic correspondence, there are English language books by Bob Woodward and Noam Chomsky, and others on economic and military theory.
More documents may yet be released.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said a “rigorous” review had taken place before the documents were released.
The documents – 103 papers and videos in all – include a number of translated letters, notes, and other material detailing al-Qaeda operations. Many of the documents also have a version available in Arabic.
In one of the letters, the al-Qaeda chief instructs one of his deputies to tell “our brothers” that they must remained focused on fighting Americans.
Their “job is to uproot the obnoxious tree by concentrating on its American trunk, and to avoid being occupied with the local security forces,” Osama bin-Laden writes.
Another letter mocks President George W. Bush’s War on Terror, with Osama bin Laden writing that it had not created stability in Iraq or Afghanistan. No date is included on the translation provided on the US government website.
There is also section entitled Materials Regarding France, which includes a number of academic reports and articles about the France’s military, politics and economy.
Also included is a document described as a “suicide prevention guide”, several English language books including Bob Woodward’s Obama’s Wars, several maps, and a few video game guides.
The documents are being released in the wake of President Barack Obama’s calls for greater transparency, said Jeffrey Anchukaitis, a spokesman for the ODNI.
“The Intelligence Community will be reviewing hundreds more documents in the near future for possible declassification and release,” Jeffrey Anchukaitis said.
Some of the material that has been included in the trove was previously declassified for use in federal prosecutions.
In 2012, some documents recovered in the raid were released by the research wing of the US military academy, West Point.