Bin Laden schemed to kill President Obama

US President Barack Obama. Photo/FILE

What you need to know:

  • Plan uncovered after studying documents found in Osama premises

Osama bin Laden schemed to kill US President Barack Obama and one of America’s top military generals, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.

Bin Laden asked Pakistani militant Ilyas Kashmiri to prepare the assassination plots against Mr Obama and the senior military commander in Afghanistan General David Petraeus.

The Americans uncovered the plans after studying dozens of documents recovered from the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden was killed by the US Navy’s Special Seal Team Six in May.

A month after the raid, the Pakistani operative who Osama wanted to carry out the plot was himself killed by US drones.

Bin Laden was the founding leader of Al-Qaeda which was blamed for a string of attacks in the last two decades including the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and the September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York that helped trigger two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to the translated version of the papers found in bin Laden’s compound, the al-Qaeda leader offered a number of rationalisations for wanting to kill President Obama and Gen Petraeus.

Bin Laden argued that assassinating Mr Obama would mean that America would be weakened because, in his assessment, US Vice- President Joe Biden would be a weak leader in the transition period. He said Gen Petraeus was playing a major role in the Afghan war effort and killing him would demoralise the Americans.

Gen Petraeus is now the head of America’s Central Intelligence Agency.

“The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make Biden take over the presidency,” bin Laden wrote to his top lieutenant Atiya Abd al-Rahman.

“… Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the US into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour ... and killing him would alter the war’s path.”

In the 48-page document, bin Laden told Atiyah to focus “every effort that could be spent on attacks in America” and to “ask the brothers in all regions if they have a brother … who can operate in the US.”

He suggested the assassination of President Obama could be carried out by attacking his official plane.