It also revealed how bin Laden encouraged his followers to cut 12 metres from US train tracks to cause a spectacular derailment he hoped would kill hundreds…reports Asian Lite News
Osama bin Laden had planned another attack against the United States after the 9/11, the documents obtained after his death revealed.
The perpetrator of the 9/11 attacks, which took the lives of nearly 3,000 people, was assassinated in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by US Navy SEALs on 1 May 2011.
According to CBS News, papers obtained and declassified by US Navy SEALs after bin Laden’s assassination in 2011 have recently revealed how the then al-Qaeda leader encouraged the use of private jets, rather than passenger plans, to carry out a follow-up attack after 9/11.
It also revealed how bin Laden encouraged his followers to cut 12 metres from US train tracks to cause a spectacular derailment he hoped would kill hundreds, the NDTV reported citing CBS.
Author and Islamic scholar Nelly Lahoud, who has spent much of her career researching al-Qaeda, examined thousands of pages of Osama bin Laden’s personal letters and notes confiscated 11 years ago by a team of two dozen Navy SEALs sent to Pakistan to capture or kill the terrorist.
During an interview aired on CBS, Lahoud explained how al-Qaeda did not anticipate that the US would go to war following the 9/11 attacks.
However, as the war raged on in Afghanistan, Lahoud said that bin Laden’s letter showed that bin Laden was surprised by how Americans reacted to September 11 atrocity. According to the declassified papers, she said that bin Laden thought that the Americans would take to the streets and would just put pressure on their government to withdraw from the Muslim majority state.
Lahoud stated that it was a huge miscalculation on bin Laden’s part, it was reported.
Speaking to CBS, Lahoud informed that according to his personal letters to his group members, Osama bin Laden did not communicate with his al-Qaeda associates for three years as he was on the run. But in 2004, he reconnected with the terrorist group, offering members his new plan to attack the United States.
She said bin Laden was “very eager” to replicate the 9/11 attacks but he was also mindful of the very difficult security conditions at airports. While reading a chilling letter from Osama bin Laden to the head of al-Qaeda’s international terror unit, Lahoud revealed that he proposed the idea of operating through a charter plane instead of a passenger one for the next attack on the country.
Bin Laden also wrote that if it is too difficult to attack using a plane, then they should target US railways.
Lahoud said that bin Laden, who had a degree in civil engineering, explained exactly how to attack the United States. “He wanted to have 12 metres 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. You know, he said, ‘You’re – you could use a compressor. You could use a smelting iron tool’,” Lahoud told CBS.