WASHINGTON - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was not the "puppet master" of jihadi groups around the world and complained of what he called their "incompetence," according to an analysis of documents seized from his hideout in Pakistan. The Combating Terrorism Center, a privately funded research center at the US Military Academy at West Point, posted on its website on Thursday 17 declassified documents taken in the raid on bin Laden's house in Abbottabad in which he was killed by US forces a year ago. (http:www.ctc.usma.edu) "On the basis of the 17 declassified documents, Bin Ladin was not, as many thought, the puppet master pulling the strings that set in motion jihadi groups around the world," a report on the documents by the Combating Terrorism Center said. "Bin Ladin was burdened by what he saw as their incompetence." The center spells bin Laden's name as Bin Ladin. The report said the al Qaeda leader, who was behind the Sept. 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks in New York, "was unimpressed by the recent trend of American populist jihad." He appeared to have little regard for Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen accused of i nstigating a number of violent al Qaeda attacks from Yemen and who was killed in a U.S. drone strike last year. Awlaki is mentioned in one letter, assessed to be from bin Laden who writes, as translated: "I hope that he be informed of us still needing more information from the battlefield in Yemen, so that it is feasible for us, with the help of God, to make the most appropriate decision to either escalate or calm down." The 17 documents are electronic letters or draft letters totaling 175 pages in the original Arabic, dating from September 2006 to April 2011, and they do not all state who wrote or received them. US intelligence officials have said Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which operates from Yemen, has emerged as the most dangerous affiliate. But according to the West Point study, bin Laden himself regarded many of al Qaeda's affiliated groups, including the ones feared by the West, with disdain. The letters show that bin Laden worried about AQAP, the Yemeni affiliate, and urged its leadership to focus efforts on attacking the United States rather than the Yemeni government or security forces, the report said. It said the confiscated material showed that the actions of another affiliate, Al Qaeda in Iraq was of particular concern to bin Laden, especially its killing of Shi'ite civilians following the U.S. invasion of Iraq. One of al Qaeda's main English-language spokesmen, American-born Adam Gadahn, even suggested that the main al Qaeda group sh ould d isassociate itself from Al Qaeda in Iraq. At one point Gadahn compared the activities of the Iraqi group to the policies of former US President George W. Bush, who had launched the 2003 Iraq invasion.
