Osama Bin Laden 'left $29m inheritance' for al-Qaeda
The United States has released what appears to be a handwritten will of the late al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
In it, Bin Laden asked that the majority of his $29m fortune be spent on continuing al-Qaeda's operations.
The letter was part of a cache of 113 documents taken in the 2011 US Special Forces in Pakistan during which Bin Laden was killed..
The documents were translated from Arabic and declassified by US intelligence agencies.
They were part of a second tranche of documents seized in the operation and have been declassified since May 2015. A large number have yet to be released.
One document, a handwritten note that US intelligence officials believe the late al-Qaeda leader composed in the late 1990s, laid out how he wanted to distribute about $29m he had in Sudan.
One percent of the $29mn, Bin Laden wrote, should go to Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, a senior al-Qaeda member who used the nom de guerre Abu Hafs al-Mauritani.
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In a letter to his father dated August 8, 2008, Bin Laden wrote that he was worried about being assassinated.
"If I am to be killed, 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," Bin Laden wrote.
A letter from Bin Laden to his "dear wife" provides a glimpse into the mindset of the most hunted man on the planet.
The wife had recently visited a dentist in Iran, and Bin Laden asks her if she is sure the physician did not insert a tiny tracking device into a filling.
"Please let me know in detail about anything that bothers you about any hospital in Iran or any suspicions that any of the brothers may have about chips planted in any way," he wrote in a letter signed Abu Abdallah, Bin Laden's nom de guerre.
"The size of the chip is about the length of a grain of wheat and the width of a fine piece of vermicelli."
A first tranche of documents released last May showed Bin Laden was worried about drone strikes, and detailed his plans to groom a new cadre of leaders.
Bin Laden also warned that conflict with regimes in the Middle East would distract his group's fighters from focusing the fight on what he considered was the the real enemy - America.
