Thu, May 03, 2012
WASHINGTON, May 3 (Xinhua) -- The United States on Thursday published part of the trove of documents seized during the raid that killed al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last year, showing bin Laden had remained focused on attacking the United States until his last days.
The papers, published on the Combating Terrorism Center at the West Point website, showed bin Laden wanted to kill U.S. leaders, with plots to bring down airplanes carrying Gen. David Petraeus and President Barack Obama.
His reasons were that an "utterly unprepared" Vice President Joe Biden at the White House would be a crisis for the U.S. side.
They also showed bin Laden's anxiety on the dysfunction and crumbling support of his terror organization, as he tried to steer affiliated groups away from using al-Qaeda's name so they would not attract so much attention.
The documents are among the more than 6,000 ones that U.S. Navy SEALs seized during their raid last year on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
They were found on five computers, dozens of hard drives and more than 100 storage devices discovered in the compound. They include digital, audio and video files, printed materials, recording devices and handwritten documents.
