Bin Laden Left $29m Inheritance For Jihad
KABUL: (MEP) Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in his hand-written will, claimed he had about $29 million in personal wealth – the bulk of which he wanted to be used on jihad.
The will is among a cache of 113 documents released to US media. It was seized in the US assault in Abbotabad, Pakistan.
The documents were translated from Arabic and declassified by US intelligence agencies.
The threat of sudden death was on his mind years before the fatal raid in Pakistan.
“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 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.”
They address a range of topics, including fractures between al-Qaida and al-Qaida in Iraq, which eventually splintered off into what is now known as the Islamic State; and bin Laden’s concerns about his organization’s public image.
In another letter, addressed to “The Islamic Community in General,” bin Laden offered an upbeat assessment of progress in his holy war and of U.S. failings in Afghanistan. The letter is undated but appears to have been written in 2010.
“Here we are in the tenth year of the war, and America and its allies are still chasing a mirage, lost at sea without a beach,” he wrote.
Bin Laden lived in Sudan for five years in the 1990s as a guest of the Sudanese government.
It is not known whether any of the money made its way to his heirs.
