WASHINGTON: Months before his death, Osama bin
Laden fretted about the Islamic State group's impatient, violent tactics and
the fading of Al-Qaeda, documents released by the CIA Thursday showed. The
latest release from the trove of documents found when Navy Seals stormed the
Al-Qaeda chief's secret Pakistan compound and killed him in 2011 show bin Laden
trying to keep his terrorist followers around the world aligned in his war
against the United States. They also reveal a worried father warning his sons
that they could be injected with electronic chips to track them, and advising
Al-Qaeda soldiers in Northern Africa that it was okay to masturbate.
He also spent significant time trying to manage the handling
of foreigners kidnapped by far-flung affiliates of his radical ISIS group. And he showed a strong focus on affairs in
his family's original homeland, Yemen, where a powerful new branch -- Al-Qaeda
on the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) -- was having a strong impact.
One letter to AQAP founder Nasir al-Wuhayshi warns not to move too fast against
the government because conditions were not yet right anywhere to form an
Islamic state that could govern effectively and resist attacks from outside. "Blood should not be shed unless we have
evidence to show that the elements of success to establish the Islamic State
and maintaining it are available or if achieving such goals is worthy of
shedding such blood," he wrote.
"There might be a huge reaction that could drag us into a real war."
Worried about Qaeda unity, focus
The documents -- which appear to date mostly from around 2010 -- some written
by bin Laden and others on his behalf, show the Al-Qaeda chief determined to
keep his group's focus on the United States as its enemy.
"The Ummah's enemies today are like a wicked tree," he wrote, using
the term for the world community of Muslims. "The trunk of this tree is
the United States." The letters
also reveal that Anwar al-Awlaki, a US-born Al-Qaeda cleric in Yemen, was a
candidate to be named emir or chief of AQAP, with bin Laden asking for more
biographical detail about him. Bin Laden registered his doubts at the same
time, noting that "here we trust the people after we send them to the
front line and test them." Awlaki, whose writings inspired numerous
converts to the jihadist cause, was killed by a US drone strike in September
2011.
A letter written by one of his aides suggests bin Laden's rising frustration
over his organization nearly a decade after the shock 9/11 attacks on the
United States. Bin Laden "talked about the fear of our organization aging,
and reaching decrepitude like other organizations," the letter said.
But the jihadist leader also had time for personal advice for Al-Qaeda fighters
in Northern Africa bound by "unfortunate celibacy" because of a lack
of available wives.
"God is not ashamed of the truth," an aide wrote in a letter, citing
bin Laden's advice. "As we see it, we have no objection to clarifying to
the brothers that they may, in such conditions, masturbate, since this is an
extreme case."
No comments
Post a Comment