Analysis: CIA releases massive trove of Osama bin Laden’s files

[Valin]

Long War Journal

Thomas Joscelyn & Bill Roggio

November 1, 2017

 

The CIA is releasing hundreds of thousands of documents, images, and computer files recovered during the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The newly-available material provides invaluable insights into the terrorist organization that struck America on September 11, 2001.

FDD’s Long War Journal has advocated for the release of bin Laden’s secret cache since 2011, arguing that such transparency would help to better inform the American people, experts and policymakers. Today’s release goes a long way toward satisfying that goal. We applaud the CIA and Director Mike Pompeo for making this material available to the public.

While the world has changed dramatically since the al Qaeda founder’s death more than six years ago, many of the files are still relevant today. Indeed, the CIA has withheld an unspecified number of documents for reasons related to protecting national security. We don’t doubt that some documents are still sensitive, but we hope that everything can be eventually released.

The CIA provided FDD’s Long War Journal with an advance copy of many of the files. It will take years for experts and researchers to comb through this treasure trove of information. However, we offer some preliminary observations below.

 

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The files provide new details concerning al Qaeda’s relationship with Iran.

One never-before-seen 19-page document contains a senior jihadist’s assessment of the group’s relationship with Iran. The author explains that Iran offered some “Saudi brothers” in al Qaeda “everything they needed,” including “money, arms” and “training in Hezbollah camps in Lebanon, in exchange for striking American interests in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.” Iranian intelligence facilitated the travel of some operatives with visas, while sheltering others. Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, an influential ideologue prior to 9/11, helped negotiate a safe haven for his jihadi comrades inside Iran. But the author of the file, who is clearly well-connected, indicates that al Qaeda’s men violated the terms of the agreement and Iran eventually cracked down on the Sunni jihadists’ network, detaining some personnel. Still, the author explains that al Qaeda is not at war with Iran and some of their “interests intersect,” especially when it comes to being an “enemy of America.”

Bin Laden’s files show the two sides have had heated disagreements. There has been hostility between the two. Al Qaeda even penned a letter to Ayatollah Khamenei demanding the release of family members held in Iranian custody. Other files show that al Qaeda kidnapped an Iranian diplomat to exchange for its men and women. Bin Laden himself considered plans to counter Iran’s influence throughout the Middle East, which he viewed as pernicious.

However, bin Laden urged caution when it came to threatening Iran. In a previously released letter, bin Laden described Iran as al Qaeda’s “main artery for funds, personnel, and communication.” And despite their differences, Iran continued to provide crucial support for al Qaeda’s operations.

 

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[WestVirginiaRebel]

From Bin Laden's journal, May 2 2011:

"Somebody at the door. Hope it's my pizza. Be right back."

[clearvision]

Supposedly almost all untranslated and his porn collection not released do to copyright issues 

[Valin]

BREAKING: CIA Releases Hundreds of Thousands of Documents from Osama bin Laden

Jonathan V. Last

Nov. 1 2017

 

 

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For the backstory on why today's release is so important, here are Hayes and Joscelyn from "The Final Obama Scandal," in 2017:

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Less than 24 hours before the official end of the Obama presidency, while White House staffers were pulling pictures off the walls and cleaning out their desks, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) posted without fanfare another installment of the documents captured in Osama bin Laden’s compound during the May 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The press statement that accompanied the release made an unexpected declaration: This batch of newly released documents would be the last one. "Closing the Book on Bin Laden: Intelligence Community Releases the Final Abbottabad Documents," the statement was headlined. According to a tally on the ODNI website, this last batch of 49 documents brings the total number released to 571.
 

For analysts who have paid attention to the Abbottabad documents, the numbers immediately caused alarm. For years, the Obama administration told the American people that the haul from the bin Laden compound was massive and important. In an interview on Meet the Press just days after the raid, Barack Obama's national security adviser, Thomas Donilon, said the material could fill "a small college library." A senior military intelligence official who briefed reporters at the Pentagon on May 7, 2011, said: "As a result of the raid, we've acquired the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever." Sources who have described the cache to THE WEEKLY STANDARD over the years have claimed that the number of captured documents, including even extraneous materials and duplicates, totals more than 1 million.

Can it really be the case that this release "closes the book"? The short answer: No, it can't.

 

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[Valin]

4 hours ago, WestVirginiaRebel said:

From Bin Laden's journal, May 2 2011:

"Somebody at the door. Hope it's my pizza. Be right back."

 

[Geee]

The real scandal of the declassified Osama bin Laden trove implicates Obama and the CIA

 

The Central Intelligence Agency has finally declassified and released hundreds of thousands of documents it seized when it liquidated al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in 2011. Initially, the Obama administration released only a handful of documents which, divorced from the context of the larger trove, appeared to support its narrative that the war on terrorism was largely won.
Mike Pompeo, director of the CIA, has now rightly released the bulk of the bin Laden cache. There’s no reason why he should not have: As soon as Obama announced bin Laden’s death, the clock toward the expiration of their operational relevance began counting down.

The new documents, so far, reveal few surprises. The documents show just how deep Iran-al Qaeda links are. The close operational relationship between the Islamic Republic of Iran and al Qaeda is well-known. The 9/11 Commission, for example, detailed tight relations between the two on several occasions. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Iranian officials acknowledged sheltering senior al Qaeda operatives when they sought to use their presence to compel the United States to turn over all Mujahedin al-Khalq members at the time present in Iraq.

[Valin]

The Good/Important Books/Articals will not come out until early next year...at the earliest.

[Valin]

From the bin Laden files (2)

Scott Johnson

Nov. 6 2017

 

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What was the Obama administration hiding? The related editorial explores the Obama administration’s “Transparent lies.” The editors write:

 

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We don’t use the word “lie” with abandon in these pages. It’s used far too often in public life, to the point at which nearly every statement someone disagrees with is characterized as a “lie.” The L-word is tightly regulated in parliamentary bodies—in Congress, for example—and rightly so. Once you call someone a liar, the good faith that allows for healthy debate is no longer possible.

On the subject of the Osama bin Laden documents, though, as Stephen F. Hayes and Thomas Joscelyn report in this issue, the administration of Barack Obama lied repeatedly and lied flagrantly. The documents were retrieved in the May 2011 raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Obama rightly hailed the mission as a success, not only because U.S. forces killed the man responsible for the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11 without suffering a casualty, but also because they carried away an enormous trove of information about bin Laden’s global terrorist network. A senior intelligence official who briefed reporters at the Pentagon said: “As a result of the raid, we’ve acquired the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever.”

In a war against a stateless enemy whose soldiers move furtively among civilians, this was a triumph. The only problem? The president and his administration didn’t believe we were at war. They believed it had been a war but had moved on to the mopping-up phase—akin to Allied troops occupying Berlin in 1945.

If this were true, the Abbottabad trove should have borne it out. The Obama administration pledged to “share as much information with the American people” as possible, an aim consistent with the president’s boast that his was the “most transparent administration in history.” But it only declassified a handful of documents. Out of the hundreds of thousands captured in the Abbottabad raid, the Obama White House released only a few hundred and falsely characterized these as the entire trove. An outrageous lie.

Why such secrecy? There were no national security concerns for the vast bulk of the collection. The raid wasn’t secret—al Qaeda knew we had whatever documents had been held in bin Laden’s lair and would adjust accordingly. Why keep them locked up?

The answer is now clear. First, bin Laden’s terrorist network wasn’t the beaten and fugitive force Obama—then seeking reelection—claimed. Second, the documents proved beyond any reasonable doubt that al Qaeda had an uneasy but mutually beneficial relationship with Iran, and Obama spent much of his second term laboring to convince Americans that the Iranian regime could be trusted.

 

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[Valin]

Spinning the bin Laden Documents

Ned Price isn't right.

Stephen F. Hayes

Nov. 20 2017

 

Ned Price is not happy.

The former CIA analyst and National Security Council official was at the center of the Obama administration’s efforts to mislead the American people about the continuing threat from al Qaeda and its affiliates and about the rogue states whose support allowed it to regain its strength and expand. With the release on November 1 of 470,000 documents, images, videos, audio, and computer files captured during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the fact that the Obama administration politicized this intelligence became indisputable and the brazenness of its effort clear.

Those responsible are understandably nervous, and they’re lashing out. Ned Price, now an NBC News analyst and a fellow at the New America Foundation, is leading the way. “The newly-released documents don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know,” he tweeted almost as soon as the documents were released. The claim is absurd.

 

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Who was politicizing politics? 

[Valin]

Podcast Osama bin Laden’s Terrorist Treasure Trove

Cliff May is joined by Bill Roggio and Thomas Joscelyn of FDD’s Long War Journal to discuss their exclusive look into the Osama bin Laden documents, and how their findings could impact the future of counterterrorism strategy and policy.