Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden had planned several attacks against the US after 9/11, according to the papers acquired by the Navy Seals. He planned the derailing of trains and air attacks through charter planes in the US.
Laden encouraged Al-Qaeda members to change the type of attacks against the US as he preferred chartering a plane rather than hijacking because the US had scaled up security following the 9/11 attack, according to the documents confiscated by the Navy Seals following bin Laden's killing in 2011.
Navy SEALS Received Thousands of Letters
They received thousands of pages of Laden's letters and notes at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The Central Investigation Agency had declassified these letters in 2017 but they were not translated.
Author and Islamic scholar Nelly Lahoud, who is fluent in Arabic and worked at Harvard and Cambridge Universities, read the document to research much about al Qaeda.
"He wanted to have 12 meters of steel rail removed so that, this way, the train could be derailed. And we find him explaining the simple toolkit that they could use," Lahoud told CBS News.
Al-Qaeda Never Anticipated US' Strong Response After 9/11
She also revealed that Laden had advised his followers to use a compressor or a smelting iron tool to execute his plan.
The Islamic scholar also told that Al-Qaeda never anticipated that following the 9/11 attack Washington would go to war but they assumed that the Pentagon could make any limited airstrike against the terror group.
Laden anticipated that the American people would take to the streets and replicate the anti-Vietnam war protests following the 9/11 attacks, according to the letters.
Al-Qaeda Didn't Have Money For its Survival
Lahoud also revealed that Laden was on the run after 9/11 as the US was aggressively hunting for him and he was not in touch with top Al-Qaeda leaders. Other senior figures in the terror group were either captured or went underground due to fears of being assassinated.
For three years, Laden was not in touch with the Al-Qaeda leaders and reconnected with them in 2004.
The terror group also didn't have enough money to save itself and maintain its leadership in a particular area as, al Qaeda had just $200,000 in its coffers, an extremely less amount to sustain such a terror organization amid the US hunt.
