There is no better way for historians to assess Osama bin Laden's
thinking and the real state of al Qaeda as it was understood by its
leaders in the years after 9/11 than the "treasure trove" of more than
6,000 documents that were recovered by the U.S. Navy SEALs who raided
bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a year ago.
In those documents we
hear bin Laden speak in his own voice, unaware, of course, that one day
his most private musings would end up in the hands of the CIA.
The documents paint a
portrait of a man who was simultaneously an inveterate micromanager but
was also someone almost delusional in his belief that his organization
could still force a change in American foreign policies in the Muslim
world if only he could get another big attack organized inside the
United States -- something some of his subordinates were quite skeptical
about given al Qaeda's diminished capabilities.
n the course of reporting
a new book about the 10-year search for bin Laden after 9/11, senior
U.S. administration officials allowed me to review hundreds of pages of
declassified -- but as yet unpublished -- memos from the Abbottabad
"treasure trove." I examined a variety of memos that were written by bin
Laden himself and also memos that his subordinates had written to him,
or to others.
The memos paint a picture
of an organization that understood it was in deep danger from the
American drone shrikes in Pakistan's tribal regions that had been
decimating its leadership since summer 2008.
They show bin Laden
hatching improbable schemes to attack the United States, while he was
deeply involved in the minutia of the internal affairs of both al
Qaeda's core group in Pakistan and its regional affiliates in the Middle
East and Africa. And they also show that bin Laden well understood that
al Qaeda's brand name was in deep trouble, in particular, because the
group and its affiliates had killed so many civilians.
On August 7, 2010, bin
Laden wrote to Mukhtar Abu al-Zubair, the leader of the brutal
Al-Shabaab militia in Somalia, telling him that Al-Shabaab ("the Youth")
would be better off if it did not declare itself publicly to be part of
al Qaeda. Bin Laden advised, "If asked, it would be better to say there
is a relationship with al Qaeda, which is simply a brotherly Islamic
connection, and nothing more."
Bin Laden explained to
the Shabaab leader that al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq had attracted many
enemies by adopting the al Qaeda name. He also pointed out that it would
be better for fundraising purposes if Shabaab didn't identify itself as
being part of al Qaeda, because businessmen in the Arab world "who are
willing to help the brothers in Somalia" would be more likely to do so
if they thought they were not supporting al Qaeda directly.
Al Qaeda, "the base" in
Arabic, was the name that the group had given itself when it was founded
in Pakistan by bin Laden in 1988. Now the leader of al Qaeda was
advising his followers to steer away from using the term.
Bin Laden also advised
members of Shabaab to try to avoid killing civilians, as they were then
doing in battles in and around Mogadishu's key Bakara market, and rather
to focus their attacks on African Union troops as they arrived or
departed at the Mogadishu airport. Given bin Laden's own record when it
came to ordering the deaths of civilians, this solicitude for the
citizens of Mogadishu is somewhat ironic.
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So badly tarnished had
the al Qaeda brand become that bin Laden noodled with changing the name
of his group. In an internal memo, bin Laden pointed out that
"[President] Obama [says] that our war is not on Islam or the Muslim
people, but rather our war is on the al Qaeda organization. So if the
word al Qaeda was derived from or had strong ties to the word 'Islam' or
'Muslims,' or if it had the name 'Islamic party' it would be difficult
for Obama to say that."
Bin Laden went on to
nominate some possible new names for al Qaeda. "These are some
suggestions: Monotheism and Jihad group, Monotheism and Defending Islam
Group, Restoration of the Caliphate Group ... Muslim Unity group." None
of these suggestions were exactly catchy and the group did not rename
itself.
Bin Laden's principal
conduit to his organization was Atiyah Abdul Rahman, a Libyan militant
of about 40. Viewed by officials in the West as no more than a mid-tier
terrorist, Rahman was actually bin Laden's chief of staff. In a 48-page
memo to Rahman written in October 2010, bin Laden told him that al
Qaeda's longtime sanctuary in Pakistan's tribal areas was now too
dangerous because of the campaign of American drone strikes there. The
CIA had launched a record number of strikes into the tribal regions
during 2010. Bin Laden wrote, "I am leaning toward getting most of our
brothers out of the area."
Bin Laden advised his
followers not to move around the tribal regions except on overcast days
when America's all-seeing satellites and drones would not have as good
visibility of the area. He complained that, "the Americans have great
accumulated expertise of photography of the region due to the fact they
have been doing it for so many years. They can even distinguish between
houses that are frequented by male visitors at a higher rate than is
normal."
Bin Laden urged his
followers to depart for the remote Afghan province of Kunar where he
himself had hid after escaping from U.S. forces at the Battle of Tora
Bora in eastern Afghanistan in December 2001, explaining that "due to
its rough terrain and many mountains, rivers, trees, it can accommodate
hundreds of the brothers without them being spotted by the enemy."
He was constantly urging
holy war to his followers, but when it came to his own family bin Laden
was privately advocating something quite different. He advised that his
20-year-old son Hamza should leave the drone-infested Pakistani tribal
regions to further his religious training in the Persian Gulf kingdom of
Qatar, which happens to be, per capita, the richest country in the
world. Bin Laden added that if two of his other sons, Othman and
Mohamed, should ever leave Iran, where they were living in exile, he
would also advise them to steer clear of Pakistan's tribal areas. (Bin
Laden noted that one of his sons, Ladin, had already been allowed to
exit Iran to travel to Syria).
According to the
documents recovered in the Abbottabad compound, the spectacular set of
self-inflicted mistakes by al Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq played heavily
on the minds of bin Laden and his top advisers. They complained
internally that al Qaeda's campaign of attacks against Iraqi Christians
had not been sanctioned by bin Laden.
To the leaders of al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula based in Yemen, bin Laden urged that they
not kill members of the local tribes, a tactic that al Qaeda had
frequently employed in western Iraq, which had provoked a tribal
uprising against al Qaeda that began in 2006 and had dealt a large blow
to the group's fortunes in Iraq. "Learn from their mistakes," bin Laden
admonished.
Al Qaeda's leaders wrote
to Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban on December 3,
2010, to warn him to suspend his campaign of attacks against Pakistani
mosques and markets, which had killed hundreds of Pakistani civilians.
Although the Pakistani
Taliban is an independent conglomeration of Taliban groups, al Qaeda was
seeking to control their tactics and stop their counterproductive
killing of Pakistani civilians. That isn't to say that al Qaeda's
leaders had suddenly morphed into humanitarians. At one point in the
letter to Mehsud, they wrote, "We're sending the attached short list on
what is acceptable and unacceptable on the subject of kidnapping and
receiving money. We hope that you and the Mujahedeen in Pakistan will
approve it."
In his isolated final
years, bin Laden became a micromanager, admonishing his Yemeni group
that its members should always gas up and eat heartily before they
embarked on road trips so that they wouldn't have to stop at gas
stations and restaurants monitored by government spies. And he advised
al Qaeda's North African wing to plant trees so they could later use
them as cover for their operations:
"Trees would give shade
and freedom to move around especially if the enemy spies from the air."
It's safe to assume that this arboreal advice was simply ignored. At one
point bin Laden even told his chief of staff that he preferred that any
money sent to him be in Euros.
Bin Laden had long been
disciplined, secretive and paranoid and he warned his lieutenants to be
careful with any contacts with journalists. "Keep in mind that
journalists may be involuntarily monitored in a way that they do not
know about either on ground or by satellite. Especially Ahmad Zaidan of
Al-Jazeera [the Al Jazeera bureau chief in Pakistan]. It's possible that
a tracking device could be put in one of their personal effects before
coming to a meeting."
Bin Laden sometimes gave
guidance to his deputies so bizarre that they must have read it while
scratching their turbans in bemusement. He complained that Faizal
Shahzad, the American citizen of Pakistani heritage who had tried to
blow up an SUV in Times Square on May 1, 2010, had broken the oath of
allegiance he had sworn to the United States, and tut-tutted that "We do
not want the Mujahedeen to be accused of breaking an oath." Bin Laden
kept pressing his lieutenants for more attacks on America, but now they
couldn't recruit naturalized U.S. citizens to carry out those missions.
Huh?
Until the end, Bin Laden
remained fixated on attacking the United States, writing to the leader
of his affiliate in Yemen, "We need to extend and develop our operations
in America and not keep it limited to only blowing up airplanes."
He urged that Yemenis
who had visas for the United States be recruited for operations there.
And he reminded his Yemeni followers that killing Americans was the
priority rather than killing Yemeni soldiers or policeman, so the United
States would be forced "finally to withdraw from our countries and stop
supporting the Jews." He also warned his group not to get overly
ambitious. "The people of Yemen are not really ready for a government
formed by al Qaeda."
Bin Laden told his
deputies that killing President Obama was a high priority as well as
then-commandier in Afghanistan Gen. David Petraeus, but not to bother
with plots against Vice President Joe Biden, then-Defense Secretary
Robert Gates, or then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen.
As the 10th anniversary
of 9/11 approached, bin Laden, always very conscious of his own media
image, got down in the weeds with his media team about how best to
exploit the impending coverage of the anniversary. He suggested reaching
out to Abdel Barri Atwan, a leading Palestinian journalist based in
London, as well as the veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk of
the British Independent newspaper, both of whom had done interviews with
bin Laden in the past. He also mused about doing a TV interview with
CBS, which he regarded as the "least biased" of the American TV
channels.
In response, an al Qaeda
member, likely the American recruit Adam Gadahn, wrote bin Laden a
critique of the various American news channels that is worth quoting at
some length: "As for the neutrality of CNN in English it seems to be in
cooperation with the government more than the others, except Fox News of
course ... I used to think that MSNBC channel might be good and
neutral, but it has lately fired two of the most famous journalists,
Keith Olbermann and Octavia Nasr, [who, in fact, left CNN] ... ABC
Channel is all right, actually it could be one of the best channels as
far as we're concerned. It's interested in al Qaeda issues, particularly
the journalist Brian Ross, who specializes in terrorism. The channel is
still proud of its interview with the Sheikh [bin Laden in 1998]."
A June 2009 letter sheds
light on the murky question of what kind of relationship al Qaeda has
enjoyed with the Iranian government since the fall of the Taliban. For
many years one of bin Laden's wives and a number of his children lived
in Iran under some form of house arrest as well as some leaders of al
Qaeda, such as the military commander Saif al-Adel.
A bin Laden lieutenant
wrote to bin Laden "With regards to the Iranian relationship and the
problem with our detained brothers, we bring good news. They released a
new group of brothers in the last month."
The writer goes on to name several men the Iranian government had recently released.
The writer alludes to al
Qaeda having abducted Heshmatollah Attarzadeh-Niyaki, an Iranian
diplomat, in late 2008 near his home in the western Pakistani city of
Peshawar. After holding the diplomat for more than a year, the militants
quietly released him back to Iran in the spring of 2010.
Pakistani intelligence
officials believe this was part of a deal that finally allowed some of
bin Laden's family to end their years of house arrest in Iran.
Source: CNN News