Osama bin Laden According to the American Secret Service

May 2, 2011 — The day after Osama bin Laden was executed in Pakistan, the National Security Archive published a compilation of declassified secret documents that were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

These documents were largely already known to the general public and do not concern Belgium. Nonetheless, they provide interesting insights into bin Laden’s character via that which was said by American secret service agents before the 9/11 attacks.

For example, as early as 1996, a short biographic note published by the CIA identified bin Laden as “one of the most significant financial sponsors of Islamic extremist activities in the world today.” Moreover, as the New York Times has emphasized, it was the CIA that aided bin Laden in his fight against the Soviets after Afghanistan was invaded in 1979. The article cites bin Laden, stating that “the [combatants’] weapons were provided by the Americans, the money by the Saudis.”*

A diplomatic memo, dating from 1997, describes how American diplomats sought to negotiate with the Taliban. “The U.S. continues to receive reports,” the memo indicates, “that bin Ladin [sic], who has been linked to a number of terrorist attacks, is planning terrorist attacks against countries like Saudi Arabia […]. It would be useful if the Taliban could tell us where he is located and ensure that he is not able to carry out these attacks.” The Taliban leaders’ response is also reported in the same document: “The Taliban would not allow anyone to use their territory for terrorist activities […]. Bin Ladin [sic] was in the Jalalabad area […] [where] he was living then as ‘a guest, as a refugee.’” Further on in the memo, Taliban leaders assure the American diplomats that bin Laden had promised them not to carry out any terrorist activity, but that “the Taliban had become suspicious” because the al-Qaida leader has gone off to live in the caves of Tora Bora.*

Another memo, dating from 1998, reveals that the American administration asked the Taliban to expel Osama bin Laden. Several alternatives were suggested by the Taliban authorities, including that the United States “arrange for Bin Laden to be assassinated.” A memo from July 2001 shows that the Americans had demanded Osama bin Laden’s expulsion by the Taliban on more than 30 occasions, with no success. According to the Taliban, bin Laden was neither engaged in, nor planning, any terrorist activates and that “getting rid of him would not solve the problems that the Islamic world posed to the United States.”*

Three years after the CIA’s short biographic note, the Sandia National Laboratories compiled a 400-page long profile of bin Laden that demonstrated the importance he had taken on for the United States. In addition, the document concluded that “Bin Laden is not a new threat: he has direct or indirect ties to many terrorist events in recent years,” that “Yesterdays [sic] friends can be tomorrow’s enemies,” and that “terrorism can be unpredictable; who would have predicted the bin Laden phenomena?”

Jan. 25, 2001, less than nine months before the Sept. 11 attacks, the chair of the United States National Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Security Group, Richard Clarke, sent a memo to Condoleezza Rice, asking to immediately revisit the manner in which the United States considers and responds to the al-Qaida network. In August of 2001, a memo intended exclusively for the American president was titled “Bin Ladin [sic] Determined to Strike in U.S.” The memo stated that, according to FBI information, attacks were being planned, including plans to hijack airplanes. Later, after the Sept. 11 attacks, Condoleezza Rice would say that the memo had only been a warning. “PDB said nothing about an attack on America,” she said. “It talked about intentions, about somebody who hated America — well, we knew that. …”

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the American administration strengthened its relations with Pakistan, whose assistance was necessary in order for the United States to “destroy Usama bin-Ladin [sic].” Despite all that, a State Department document (the equivalent of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) confirmed to the vice president that “some Taliban leaders operate with relative impunity in some Pakistani cities.”

It was in Pakistan that Osama bin Laden was discovered and executed on May 1, 2011. The operation, launched by the American President Barack Obama, was unilateral — without the cooperation or even the knowledge of Pakistan.

*These quotes, accurately translated, could not be verified.