the day. which meant they were ready to declare an islamic state in yemen. it also seems that there was a request a senior leader be dispatched to yemen to help in the operational work. well that's not what bin laden had in mind. before responding, bin laden had written at length about yemen and said in his mind that such an islamic state if prematurely declared is doomed to fail and that it's likely to lead to aborting the work of jihad. instead bin laden thought yemen should serve as a reserve and support base for jihadis engaged in open warfare in countries that are occupied like iraq and afghanistan. so the letter addressed is unambiguous and somewhat conde sending in its tone. on the question of declaring a

state, the author wrote almost mockingly. of course we want an islamic state in which we establish god's law but only capable of holding on to it. the author reminded him that if unable to hold on to afghanistan as an islamic state, the chances of jihadis holding on to yemen are even slimmer. as to the request for a senior leader to be dispatched to yemen to assist in the operational work this was politely denied citing security related reasons even though bin laden was planning to dispatch somebody the region. the fact that attacks continued to mount, the letter suggests the leader either did not receive the letter and if he did it displeased him. my personal favorite is the

pakistan and taliban. the references in which bin laden mentioned the group are far from flattering. he was not informed, by the way of the group's planned bombing of times square in 2010 and he was appalled by his conduct in his trial which bin laden was following in the news. i beg your indulgence because this is a quotation from his letter. this is a letter from bin laden to al qaeda. you have perhaps followed the trial. may god release him in which the brother was asked to explain his attack against the united states in view of having taken notice not to harm it when he was awarded his american citizenship. he responded that he lied when he took the oath. it does not escape you that the lie amounted to betrayal and does not fall under permissionable lying. please request our pakistani taliban brothers to redress this matter. also draw their attention to the

fact that he appeared in a photograph alongside the commander of the ttp. i want to verify that when a person acquires an american citizenship this involves taking an oath swearing not to harm america. if he's unaware of this matter he should be informed of it. we must act swiftly to remove the suspicion that jihad violated their oath and engaged in betrayal. the times square attempted attack was not the only one that al qaeda had no hand in pakistan. it is clear from thelers that the group's indiscriminate attack against muslims were of major concern for al qaeda. this led them to write a letter addressed to the respected brother, the leader of the ttp. the authors explicitly stated their dissatisfaction with the group's behavior and said unless we see clear steps towards

reforming yourself and disassociating yourself from these vile mistakes that violate islamic law we shall be forced to take public and legal steps from our side. end of quotation. bin laden was concerned over the group's mode of governance, neglect to build a viable economy and worried about the group's rigid approach to islamic law. it seems that the leader had sent a letter to bin laden in which he requested the formal unity with al qaeda and either consulted with him on forming an islamic state in somalia. bin laden's letter has echos of its not you it's me sort of excuse. on the question of formal unity with al qaeda, bin laden politely declined citing two reasons. first indicating it would give the enemy to mobilize their

forces against somalia. the second reason bin laden cited is the extreme poverty in somalia, and he wanted to promote economic development and construction there. so he tells him i'm determined to urge merchants in the gulf states in one of my public statements to invest in effective and important development. that's the absence of public affiliation he explained between jihadi and somalias with al qaeda would strengthen the position of merchants who desire to help their muslim brothers. on the question of declaring a state bin laden advised against it but said if you believe it's necessary why don't you declare it. what's intriguing about this is that bin laden denied them public union with al qaeda as their wishes were granted after

bin laden's death in february of this year. this says something about some tension amongst senior al qaeda leaders. in light of the documents one really has to reassess what al qaeda is today and its relationship with regional jihadi groups. next oil talk about iran and pakistan. relation between al qaeda and iran appear to have been highly antagonistic. this battle appears to have been an attempt to influence the indirect and unpleasant negotiations over the release of jihadis and their families including members of bin laden's family. the documents provide insight on al qaeda in 2009 and of course not from iran's side. this was after iran, we are told released a grouch brothers in several batches. the list included a number of

legacy al qaeda members described as mid-level brothers whose size of the group stretch back to the 1990s. based on the letter the iranians were not releasing jihadi prisoners to forge a bond or strength an existing one with al qaeda and it's significant to note that the iranians do not appear to have made direct contact with al qaeda at least not in the initial stage. the frustration could not be clear on approaching him but the criminals, referring to the iranian, the criminals did not send us any letter, do not wish to appear to be negotiating with us or responding to our pressures to suggest their efforts are one sided. so, the documents are clear about al qaeda, where al qaeda stands in this relationship with iran but of course we don't know, we don't have, you know, anything on iran's perspective on the matter and the reasons why iran detained many jihadies and their families without due

process for years. there were references to the iranian regime there are not many references to pakistan although there are notes about trusted pakistani brothers there are no explicit references to any institutional pakistani support. in other reference is that bin laden did not appear to enjoy freedom of movement with his family. in his long list of security measures to be followed by his brothers to evade the eyes of the authorities he writes that it is most important not to allow children to leave the house except in emergency situations. for nine years prior to his death bin laden proudly told al qaeda that he and his family precluded his children from playing outdoors without the supervision of an adult who could keep their voice down. so bin laden, it was said could run but he could not hide.

well he seems to have done very little running and quite a lot of hiding. to conclude in comparison to regional jihadi groups, bin laden comes across as an outmoded jihadi. in contrast to their indiscriminate attacks and jihad he was more interested in carefully planned methods and operations. the regional groups eagerness to declare islamic states in their regions was mode rated by bin laden urging patience first to secure public support and while they aimed to win the short term battles his eyes were on the larger prize. he wanted to defeat the united states to undo what he believes to have been -- to undo its support for the corrupt muslim regimes. bin laden knew well how to articulate publicly the grievances he believed muslims suffered at the hands of their

regimes in western countries, but his private letters show that saving his fellow muslims from the indiscriminate attacks of jihadi brothers weighed even more heavily on his mind. thank you. [ applause ] >> okay. this one working? can you hear me? good. so oil ask a couple of questions. you know, i had some written down and i kept writing more down as you were talking. i guess the -- let me ask you first about this notion that bin laden was not in control, right. because some of the conversation, the policy conversation here in washington after the letters were released emphasized something different that bin laden was, in fact, in communication at least with elements of the al qaeda empire around the world, right, various organizations and these sorts of groups.

and there was the assumption among some that kind of communication didn't occur. so how do we understand his ability to communicate and place it in the appropriate context, you know, in reference to his ability to control events at various places, right? because he was in contact and that wasn't a foregone conclusion. >> right. well, there's a clear difference between communicating and being in control. the documents are clearly showing that he is not in control. at the very least -- it is important to note that bin laden appears to us in the documents in late 2010. we don't see him before then through these documents. in 2010 we don't see bin laden to be in control. if anything the. documents are showing that, yes, he is communicating with him but in many instances he is very

concerned about the operation, their ideology, their own public statements. so, being in communication is completely different from being in control. so if bin laden was in charge of the jihadi world throughout this time, we would clearly be seeing completely different kinds of operations. and that's not the world that he was in charge of. >> what would we have seen? would we have seen larger attacks more directed at the united states? >> so, let me be a little bit kind of -- i don't want to spare bin laden. on one level you see bin laden in these letters calling on these regional jihadi groups to focus their attacks on the united states. at the same time you can see that he doesn't trust them. so there is something intriguing

about one of these letters, the longest letters that he wrote, which is the most reflective one. this is the letter in which he propose to centralize jihadi activities. this is really the centralization, his attempt comes in 2010. so, what we seem to have is that he wants to centralize efforts, we don't know what it was like before then. and we see him -- the plan for this centralization seems to refer to this kind of special operation force that he would have liked to create based on the letter from a certain person, a very carefully written and intelligent letter about how we need to police the regional

jihadi groups. so my own interpretation is that it don't think bin laden would have wanted to trust them on the operational front, but he wanted them to be there for sure. whether he had the capability to create the special operation force or not is very difficult to say. having said that and this is where i think, you know, if i were in yemen i would be surprised to receive this letter from bin laden because, you know, some of his statements prior to that he would call on muslims to rebel against their leaders and so on. so all of a sudden he's saying hold. don't act. so there is -- there is a change in bin laden's mode of thinking between his public statements and what he is saying starting from 2010. it is possible that he thought

well, they can't be trusted and they are not going to be able to mount the quality of operations that he would like. for instance in one of his letters in somalia he's very clear just don't worry about it unless you can really mount quality attack don't even bother. so, he's way more interested in quality than he is in quantity. and he seems to be somebody who is very patient and was prepared to wait until the right moment. >> bin laden's concern about killing muslims was not really that much of a surprise. we've scene concern from al qaeda, senior leaders in al qaeda going back to most famously 2005 with this letter, subsequent letters to folks in iraq and then in some other

declassified documents that have been released in 2008 also in reference to iraq. this is a major theme of your book, right? this notion that built into al qaeda's ideology is this spinning out of control where individuals and affiliates will take up their own initiative and not do things that's in the strategic interest of the jihadi enterprise at large. you got to feel good because you got that one good. i'm wondering when you look at these documents, 17 documents according to my colleague paul bergen, more than several thousand documents, what did you expect? what was confirmed in these documents? what from these documents surprised you where you didn't really think that al qaeda would be thinking about, you know, x, y, or z?

>> so, i had been working, as you know, on a biography of a leading al qaeda leader and it's my education of al qaeda. frankly when you receive the documents that my report on it had been completed and it was reviewed by external leaders so i have to put it aside and i think it's much more insightful than the 17 documents. so i had this -- the documents did not surprise me because i had heard them before. and the report will be published, you know, hopefully next week. so, i was very familiar with these dynamics from an insider perspective about the fact that these indiscriminate attacks

against civilian is, is not al qaeda's mode. and also against other civilians. al qaeda sees itself as targeting military, economic and political targets. it doesn't see itself targeting civilians. that's why i think we need to be looking, especially after these documents have been released, we need to reassess where al qaeda stands. what is really al qaeda and what does it mean in terms of the rest of the regional jihadi groups. so that didn't surprise me. i had this privilege to be reading somebody's work. but i'll tell you what surprised me. i had thought that bin laden, you know, through a number of primary sources that bin laden

was actually a very decent al qaeda leader. and i can see why. i thought it was exaggerated in terms of the people who followed him. what surprised me was -- i was expecting to see somebody -- >> that stands somewhat in contrast to the famous video of him watching himself on tv. >> yeah. but this was selective. of course he's on the news. i didn't see much about him watching himself, a selective -- but he in the letters, i was expecting somebody who is, you know, thinking. he's consulting with people around him. he offers suggestion. he asks for people's views for

consideration and to get back to him. in fact, one of the three items that he wants to be part of the oath, the covenant is for people to be obligated to give advice to their senior leaders. so all this bru-ha-ha about they needed to pledge members of al qaeda, needed to pledge allegiance to bin laden's persona, it's not there. i've read other primary sources of al qaeda that we have and the oath doesn't require an oath to bin laden. it requires a commitment to carry out al qaeda's work but it doesn't, in his own letters the three items, there is the oath for carry out the work and the third one on the item, members duty to advise -- to give advice to their senior leaders. there's no arrogance or i didn't see it in these letters anyway.

so that was -- and in addition to that he shows he's highly concerned about the safety of his men. he's willing for the work to go slow. so long as security is, in fact. those who died he inquired about their families. tell me more about their families. so i can see now it came closer to me in terms of the sort of leader of why people around him, respected him and thought that he was principled. >> i think that's an obvious question which is now that he's gone we have another one whose many qualities that you are describing about bin laden is not described to ayman al zawahiri. he has throughout his career as a militant gotten into fights with supposed allies.

he's somebody generally kpaeking not as charismatic but the affiliate al qaeda has recognized as the new leader of the organization. where do you see al qaeda going and again as we were discussing beforehand, you know, rather than think about ayman al zawahiri, whether he's a better or worse leader than bin laden how will he be different? where are the sort of personal organizational differences and what what are the strategical differences especially with these affiliate groups and the pledge of allegiance by shabab and being welcomed by ayman al zawahiri when bin laden didn't want to bring them into the fold. >> right. so just a qualifier. i don't know enough from primary sources as to how members say the group he led or members of al qaeda on the basis of the

autobiography i worked on doesn't seem popular. i can't say that he's an arrogant person or not. i can't say. but to his credit, he, you know, bin laden sacrificed his fortune for the cause that he believed in. now ayman al zawahiri didn't start with a fortune, the fortune that bin laden did but he was a successful doctor and company have had a different career if he wanted to. so in that respect he continues to enjoy that kind of what is referred to presence in jihad. he had sacrificed something for the cause. arrogant or not arrogant i won't speak because i continue know. what is interesting about ayman al zawahiri, unfortunately the documents do not tell us as much about bin laden's relationship with him. he is referred to in a number of letters. so bin laden is in contact with

him but it's difficult to say whether, you know, he was rebuking him in his letters or whether he was supporting him and so on. what does seem to be interesting about this is that bin laden only accepted al qaeda in iraq into the fold. that was at the end of 2004. and it seemed for all intents and purposes that this was a mistake, and it proved to be a liability. that we knew before but we know also from the documents that al qaeda and iraq is certainly not an asset and i wonder whether bin laden knew that this was a mistake and he stopped doing this. but all the other regional he had the groups that have become into the fold of al qaeda and been admitted into the fold of al qaeda came through ayman al zawahiri not bin laden. what makes it more intriguing is that this 2010 letter from bin

laden to the leader of shabab in somalia is that bin laden was reluctant to franchise al qaeda. he made the mistake once he's not going to do it again. so, if that is the case why did ayman al zawahiri accept the group? why did he bring him into fold. now, there is a sort of a letter, one of the letters which is open to several interpretations. and it could be addressed to bin laden but it could be addressed to somebody else. and i want seems to be about bin laden's refusal to admit al shabab into the fold. and the an anonymous author of this letter is critical of the fact why aren't we including them into the fold and the more

we include in the fold is a sign by god. i have a suspicion that maybe ayman al zawahiri and my suspicion also is that it was not addressed to bin laden but i could be wrong about it and it could be some went behind his back. >> before i turn it over to the audience for questions i want to ask you one more about this process. this is 17 documents, reportedly several thousand were captured. you know, you made the important provisos how do you understand 17 documents and placing them in the context of the rest of the stuff that wasn't released and even then what do you not see? there's a lot of context that goes mission. what is the value of declassifieding this information. folks criticize this process. i support this disclosure to

have a more informed debate but do you think we can do more of this in the future? this is something they have done in the past. how do we facilitate a process where we can understand these kinds of documents in the future? >> well, to start with, the ctc doesn't have anything to do with the deglass ti if i occasion of the documents. i am not an american citizen and i don't have clearance. we're an academic outfit. it's an academic process. not a political process. and i think the findings of the report make it more than clear that this is not a political process. and the issue of declassifying more or not we don't know if they have more. they may well have, books by legal scholars that could count as many thousands of documents but it's very difficult for us

to make it, to be clear on what they have or what they don't have. now, we have two options. you could say either you give us everything or we're not touching it or you could work with what you have. so, i don't deal with this part of the capture. from my own personal opinion i studied my own academic studies have been with medievalists and we work on one text and we know that this text is referring to several other texts, so the best thing you can do is to do justice to the documents that you are reading. it's very possible that the report gets al qaeda wrong. but the report i very much hope gets the documents right, that we did what we think we need to do from an academic perspective

which is to analyze the documents and let the documents speak for themselves. what happens in the future is really in the hands of the agencies that either have or do not have document, but from our perspective and here, you know, for those of us -- for those who don't know much about the ctc, we are purely, you know, we just teach and research. though we are part of the department of defense, if you look through our publications, you know, we all publish with a disclaimer that this represents the author's views not anybody's views and frankly, you know, personally i'm going to say that my superiors, i was the lead person on this project, and at no point throughout the process did any of my superiors, at no