Read Declassified Bin Laden Documents Here
Newly declassified documents show Osama bin Laden set aside about $29 million in his will to fund terrorism.
Al Qaeda’s leaders were concerned about spies in their ranks, drones flying above them, and how the United States was attempting to track them, newly released documents obtained during the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan show.
Al Qaeda’s leaders were concerned about spies in their ranks, drones flying above them, and how the United States was attempting to track them, newly released documents obtained during the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan show.
On Tuesday, U.S. intelligence agencies released 113 documents that were declassified and translated into English. It’s the latest dump of materials obtained when Navy SEALs raided bin Laden’s hideout, killing him in the process.
The documents reveal an increasingly paranoid bin Laden. In one, the former al Qaeda chief, writing under the pseudonym Abu Abdallah, expressed concern that a tracking device could have been implanted in his wife’s dental filling.
But they also show his deep commitment to his jihadi cause, even from beyond the grave. His last will showed he had set aside about $29 million in Sudan — where he lived for five years before being expelled in 1996 — to continue to fund global terrorism.
Read the documents here. Check back with ForeignPolicy.com for a deeper dive into them later Tuesday.
Photo credit: Getty Images
David Francis was a staff writer at Foreign Policy from 2014-2017.
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