WASHINGTON – U.S. drones were decimating the upper ranks of al-Qaida, his men were killing suspected spies, and Osama bin Laden wondered: Could an Iranian dentist have planted a tracking device in his wife’s tooth?
“The size of the chip is about the length of a grain of wheat and the width of a fine piece of vermicelli,” he wrote, using the nom de guerre Abu Abdallah.
The letter was among thousands of pages of documents and other materials seized by Navy SEALs during the raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011, and it was declassified Tuesday along with 112 other pieces of writings and letters found in the al-Qaida leader’s hideout.
Among the newly released documents was what appeared to be a will written by bin Laden, in which he said he had about $29 million in Sudan. If he was killed, it said, he hoped his family will “obey my will and to spend all the money that I have left in Sudan on Jihad.”
In what has been released so far, the fear of being tracked resurfaces again and again. In one letter, bin Laden warns that a suitcase used to deliver a ransom could contain a tracking device.
There is also what appears to be a course syllabus for new fighters. Titled a “Course of Islamic Study for Soldiers and Members,” it includes subjects and skills to be taught (No. 1: reading and writing) and lectures to be given (subjects range from history of jihad in the Horn of Africa to “a brief word on raising children”).
In 2014, Congress directed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to review the material and make public as much as possible. It has been a slow process.
The first release, in May 2015, included nearly 80 documents, books, news media clippings and other materials.
There were letters to loved ones, including a note to one of his wives in which bin Laden said that if he were killed, she could remarry. But he included a caveat: “I really want for you to be my wife in paradise, and the woman, if she marries two men, is given a choice on Judgment Day to be with one of them.”
