Osama bin Laden was planning an attack on the United States to coincide with the tenth anniversary of 9/11, according to intelligence seized at bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan that was reported by the Wall Street Journal Thursday.
The attack was only in its planning stages, unnamed U.S. officials told the Journal. The sources said the evidence indicated that bin Laden and his lieutenants were in the process of selecting operatives for the attack when the U.S. commandos struck the al Qaeda leader’s compound in Abbottabad on May 2.
Beyond general discussions of an attack on Sept. 11, the evidence does not indicate whether bin Laden had settled on a specific target for the attack, though al Qaeda has a well-known penchant for striking symbolically significant targets.
The revelations are the latest tidbit to trickle out of a reported goldmine of information seized by Navy SEALs. That information describes a testy relationship between bin Laden and his operational chief, Attiyah Abd al-Rahman.
One unnamed U.S. official quoted by the Journal said that the latest evidence indicates that bin Laden’s lieutenants may not have respected him. Rahman proposed several candidates for the operation, but bin Laden reportedly rejected the suggestions.
Rahman remains at large, and is currently one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. Al Qaeda has cycled through a series of operational chiefs in recent years, many of whom have been targeted and killed in U.S. drone strikes.
“What we found was that he [bin Laden] was very isolated, and it is clearly the case he was struggling to continue to hold on to the type of influence and to direct operations in ways he may have been able to do in the past,” the official told the Journal.
Earlier this year U.S. officials warned in vague terms about the potential for an attack on July 4 or September 11, and Thursday’s revelations represent the most concrete reports to date that al Qaeda planned to strike on the anniversary.
