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Bin Laden last messages were about financial hardship, loss of ranking members due to drone attacks and a focus to attack the United States. Al Qaeda was an organisation without a structure to rebuild and was losing interests throughout the masses of the Middle East and the Arab uprising this spring.
Bin Laden document trove reveals strain on al-Qaeda
(Washington Post Login or TheLedger) – One of bin Laden’s principal correspondents was Atiyah abd al-Rahman, who served as No. 3 in al-Qaeda before bin Laden’s death. A 2010 message from Rahman expressed frustration with the CIA drone campaign, a source of particular concern because many of his predecessors in the third-ranking slot had been killed in strikes by the unmanned aircraft.
LOSING THE ESPIONAGE WAR
Other messages sounded a similar theme. At least two came from the head of al-Qaeda’s security unit, a group that had been established to protect against penetrations by informants who might provide targeting tips to the CIA. The group is thought to be behind executions of dozens of suspected informants. In some cases, corpses were found with notes attached declaring that the deceased was an American spy.
The unit leader complains “about having a very low budget, a few thousand dollars,” the official said. The letter refers to “ideas” about how to better guard against informants and electronic eavesdropping. But the most obvious solutions, including restricting meetings and movements, would also hamper al-Qaeda’s ability to function.
EGYPTIAN AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI
The cache contains correspondence between bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, who recently succeeded bin Laden as al-Qaeda’s leader. The two express frustration that the conflict between al-Qaeda and the United States is not more widely perceived among Muslims as the front of a religious war. They also voice concern about how insurgent killings of civilians in Iraq and elsewhere could undermine al-Qaeda’s standing among Muslims.
CIA idles drone flights from base in Pakistan
(Washington Post) – The CIA three months ago suspended its long-standing use of an air base in Pakistan as a launch site for armed drones targeting members of al-Qaeda and other militant groups, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.
U.S. personnel and Predator drones remain at the facility, in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, with security provided by the Pakistani military, officials from both countries said. In recent days, Pakistan has publicly declared that it “ended” all U.S. flights from the base in the wake of the secret U.S. commando raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
But U.S. and Pakistani officials said the aircraft launches were halted in April, weeks before the bin Laden raid, after a dispute over a CIA contractor who fatally shot two Pakistani citizens in Lahore in January.
EXPANDED DRONE STRIKES
Lethal missiles have been launched from unmanned aircraft in at least five countries in addition to Pakistan — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and, most recently, Somalia. The military’s Joint Special Operations Command last week used a drone to attack what officials said were two senior members of the al-Shabab militant group near Kismaayo, on the southern Somali coast.
SHAMSI AIR STRIP IN BALUCHISTAN
Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf secretly authorized the CIA, under the George W. Bush administration, to operate drones from Shamsi, a small air facility in Baluchistan.The air strip, located about 600 miles southwest of Islamabad, apparently was constructed years ago by the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates as an arrival point for falconry and other hunting expeditions in Pakistan.
A May 2005 State Department cable from the U.S. Embassy in the UAE reported that government’s displeasure that news of the arrangement, and use of the airfield, was revealed in a book published by retired Gen. Tommy Franks, the former head of the U.S. Central Command.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."