Osama bin Laden wanted legacy to fund jihad

In his handwritten will, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden claimed he had about $29 million in personal wealth — the bulk of which he wanted to be used “on jihad, for the sake of Allah”.

The will was released in a batch of more than 100 documents seized in a May 2011 raid that killed bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The al-Qaeda leader planned to divide his fortune among his relatives, but wanted most of it spent to conduct the work of the Islamic extremist terror network behind the September 11 attacks.

The threat of sudden death was on his mind years before the fatal raid in Pakistan.

“If I am to be killed,” he wrote in a 2008 letter to his father, “pray for me a lot and give continuous charities in my name, as I will be in great need for support to reach the permanent home.”

The letters were included in a batch of documents released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

They address a range of topics, including fractures between al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda in Iraq, which eventually splintered off into what is now known as the Islamic State; and bin Laden’s concerns about his organisation’s public image and his desire to depict it as a united network.

The letters show he was increasingly worried about spies in their midst, drones in the air and secret tracking devices.

In one document, bin Laden issues instructions to al-Qaeda members holding an Afghan hostage to be wary of possible tracking technology attached to the ransom payment.

“It is important to get rid of the suitcase in which the funds are delivered, due to the possibility of it having a tracking chip in it,” bin Laden states in a letter to an aide identified only as “Shaykh Mahmud”.

In an reference to armed US drones patrolling the skies, bin Laden says his negotiators should not leave their rented house in the Pakistani city of Peshawar “except on a cloudy day”.