News Digest

Declassified documents reveal a bin Laden haunted by surveillance fears

In his last years at his final hideout, Osama bin Laden was haunted by his accurate hunch that he was being hunted by a remorseless and technologically advanced foe. When he was killed by U.S. Navy commandos, bin Laden was plotting a coordinated media push to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Declassified documents revealed Wednesday show that he was having difficulty organizing large-scale attacks against the West but was determined to take full credit for past successes. He also had numerous books by conspiracy theorists and an inordinate number on France, suggesting he may have planned to strike the country’s economy, officials said.

We will send some of the brothers who are bright … to study at universities…Chemists, of course, are in demand “for manufacturing explosives, which is something we have a dire need for.

Osama bin Laden

Reportedly, it was by tracking one of bin Laden’s couriers to Abbottabad that the CIA was eventually able to pinpoint his location — there was no electronic communication from the house. U.S. intelligence officials released more than 100 documents that were seized in the raid on bin Laden’s compound, including a loving letter to one of his wives and a job application for his terrorist network.