THE GUARDIAN: Hord of writings on computers, flash drives and in diary reveal morbid emphasis on another atrocityOsama bin Laden went to the bizarre length of trying to calculate how many more American deaths it would take to force the US to retreat from the Middle East, his writings have revealed.
The al-Qaida leader was convinced that only a massive blood-letting on the scale of 9/11 would have the necessary shock factor to effect a change in US policy around the region. He told his followers that a sprinkling of smaller attacks would not have the desired effect.
The revelation of Bin Laden's morbid emphasis on another mass atrocity comes from the large stash of his writings that was discovered in his hideout in Pakistan and brought by Navy Seals to the US after they killed him. The hord, which has been compared in size to a small college library, included five computers and about 100 removable digital storage devices or flash drives. It also included a diary that Bin Laden wrote by hand.
US intelligence officers poring through the data told the Associated Press the information underlines how proactive Bin Laden continued to be even when al-Qaida as a movement was on the defensive. Though he didn't appear to have the ability directly to co-ordinate specific attacks from his lair in Abbottabad, he did have input into every major al-Qaida plot, including those across Europe last year, the officials said.
He was also in touch with many of the most dangerous al-Qaida offshoots around the world that some had assumed were working independently, such as the branch in Yemen that has become a leading centre of al-Qaida activity. » | Ed Pilkington in New York and Declan Walsh in Islamabad | Thursday, May 12, 2011
