Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had
millions of dollars stashed in Sudan and wanted most of it to be used to
fund jihad, according to a handwritten will released Tuesday.
The document was among a tranche of
newly declassified files that had been seized by Navy SEALs on May 2,
2011 when they descended on Bin Laden’s hideout in the Pakistani
garrison town of Abbottabad and killed him.
The Office of the Director of National
Intelligence released dozens of documents, including one they said was
bin Laden’s will that deals with monies in Sudan.
Written in Arabic on a single piece of
lined paper, the signed will states bin Laden had about $29 million in
Sudan, and that much of it had come from his brother.“I received twelve million dollars from
my brother Abu Bakir Muhammad Bin (Laden) on behalf of Bin Laden Company
for Investment in Sudan,” he wrote, according to the ODNI’s translation
of the document.
“I hope, for my brothers, sisters, and
maternal aunts, to obey my will and to spend all the money that I have
left in Sudan on jihad, for the sake of Allah.”
Bin Laden sheltered in the Sudanese
capital Khartoum for five years in the early 1990s. The ODNI did not
immediately return a call seeking information on what happened to the
purported hoard.
The documents also show a growing schism
between bin Laden’s lieutenants and Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and said bin
Laden was planning a worldwide media campaign for the 10th anniversary
of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In a letter to his father dated August 8, 2008 bin Laden wrote that he was worried about being assassinated.
“If I am to be killed, pray for me a lot
and give continuous charities in my name, as I will be in great need
for support to reach the permanent home,” bin Laden wrote.
He also asks his dad for absolution, without saying what he might be regretting.
“I would like you to forgive me, if I have done what you did not like,” he wrote.
A first tranche of documents released
last May showed bin Laden was worried about drone strikes, and in which
he laid out plans to groom a new cadre of leaders.
Bin Laden also warned that conflict with
regimes in the Middle East would distract the extremists from hitting
hard at what as far as he was concerned is the real enemy, America.
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