WASHINGTON: Though hunted and in hiding, Osama Bin Laden remained the driving force behind every recent Al-Qaeda terror plot, US officials say, citing his private journal and other documents recovered in last week's raid. Until Navy SEALs killed him a week ago, Bin Laden dispensed chilling advice to the leaders of Al-Qaeda groups from Yemen to London: Hit Los Angeles, not just New York, he wrote. Target trains as well as planes. If possible, strike on significant dates, such as the July 4 Independence Day and the upcoming 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Above all, he urged, kill more Americans in a single attack, to drive them from the Arab world. Bin Laden's written words show that counterterrorist officials worldwide underestimated how key he remained to running the organization, shattering the conventional thinking that he had been reduced through isolation to being an inspirational figurehead, US officials said Wednesday. His personal, handwritten journal and his massive collection of computer files show he helped plan every recent major Al-Qaeda threat the US is aware of, including plots in Europe last year that had travelers and embassies on high alert, two officials said. So far, no new plots have been uncovered in Bin Laden's writings, but intelligence officials say it will take weeks, if not months, to go through. They described the intelligence to The Associated Press only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about what was found in Bin Laden's hideout. The records show Bin Laden was communicating from his walled compound in Pakistan with Al-Qaeda's offshoots, including the Yemen branch, which has emerged as the leading threat to the United States. Though there is no evidence yet that he was directly behind the attempted Christmas Day 2009 bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner or the nearly successful attack on cargo planes heading for Chicago and Philadelphia, it's now clear that they bear some of Bin Laden's hallmarks. He was well aware of US counterterrorist defenses and schooled his followers how to work around them, the messages to his followers show. Don't limit attacks to New York City, he said in his writings. Consider other areas such as Los Angeles or smaller cities. Spread out the targets. In one particularly macabre bit of mathematics, Bin Laden's writings show him musing over just how many Americans he must kill to force the US to withdraw from the Arab world. He concludes that the smaller, scattered attacks since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks had not been enough. He tells his disciples that only a body count of thousands, something on the scale of the attacks on New York and Washington, would shift US policy. While Obama has ordered that photos of Bin Laden's body be kept from public view, members of the House and Senate Intelligence and Armed Services committees have been making appointments at CIA headquarters to view the graphic images. A senator who was shown photographs of bin Laden after he was shot said they left no doubt he was dead.
