Bin Laden left $29 million inheritance for jihad, will reveals

In his handwritten will, former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden claimed he had about $29 million in personal wealth, the bulk of which he wanted to be used "on jihad, for the sake of Allah."

The will was released Tuesday in a batch of more than 100 documents seized in the May 2011 raid by U.S. Special Forces that killed bin Laden at his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The letters were included in a batch of documents released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. They address a range of topics, including fractures between al-Qaida and its branch in Iraq, which eventually splintered off into what is now known as Islamic State, and bin Laden's concerns about his organization's public image and his desire to depict it as a united network.

The al-Qaida leader planned to divide his fortune among his relatives, but wanted most of it spent to conduct the work of the Islamic extremist terror network behind the Sept. 11 attacks. The will did not disclose much detail about where he amassed his wealth, but bin Laden's father ran a successful construction company in Saudi Arabia for years, and the will noted that $12 million was from his brother on behalf of the Bin Laden Co.

One percent of the $29 million, bin Laden wrote, should go to Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, a senior al-Qaida terrorist who used the nom de guerre Abu Hafs al Mauritani.

"By the way, he [al-Walid] has already received $20,000 to $30,000 from it," bin Laden continued. "I promised him that I would reward him if he took it out of the [Sudanese] government."

Bin Laden lived in Sudan for five years as an official guest until he was asked to leave in May 1996 by the then-Islamic fundamentalist government under pressure from the United States.

The will said a further 1% should be given to a second associate, engineer Abu Ibrahim al-Iraqi Sa'ad, for helping set up bin Laden's first company in Sudan, Wadi al-Aqiq Co.

Bin Laden urged his close relatives to use the rest of the funds to support holy war.

"I hope for my brothers, sisters and maternal aunts to obey my will and to spend all the money that I have left in Sudan on jihad, for the sake of Allah," he wrote.

He set down specific amounts in Saudi riyals and gold to be apportioned between his mother, a son, a daughter, an uncle, and his uncle's children and maternal aunts.

In a letter dated Aug. 15, 2008, and addressed "to my precious father," bin Laden asked that his wife and children be taken care of in the event he died first.

It was unclear to whom bin Laden was writing, as his natural father, Mohammed bin Laden, died in a 1967 airplane crash. U.S. intelligence officials were not immediately available to comment on whether he may have been referring to his stepfather, Mohammad al-Attas.

"My precious father: I entrust you well for my wife and children, and that you will always ask about them and follow up on their whereabouts and help them in their marriages and needs," he wrote.

In a final wistful paragraph, he asks for forgiveness "if I have done what you did not like."

In a letter to one of his wives who had been living in Iran, bin Laden expressed worry that her visit to a dentist could have presented the Iranians with an opportunity to implant a small chip under her skin, apparently as a tracking device.

"My dear wife," he began, "I was told that you went to a dentist in Iran, and you were concerned about a filling she put in for you. Please let me know in detail ... any suspicions that any of the brothers may have about chips planted in any way."

The Iranian dentist might have used a slightly enlarged syringe to make such an implant, bin Laden wrote in the letter. The U.S. translation is undated.

"The size of the chip is about the length of a grain of wheat and the width of a fine piece of vermicelli," bin Laden said. He asked her to recall the exact date of her dental work, "also about any surgery you had, even if it was only a quick pinch."

In another letter, addressed to "the Islamic community in general," bin Laden offered an upbeat assessment of progress in his holy war since Sept. 11, 2001, and of U.S. failings in Afghanistan. The letter is undated but appears to have been written in 2010.

"Here we are in the 10th year of the war, and America and its allies are still chasing a mirage, lost at sea without a beach," he wrote.

"They thought that the war would be easy and that they would accomplish their objectives in a few days or a few weeks, and they did not prepare for it financially; and there is no popular support that would enable it to carry on a war for a decade or more. The sons of Islam have opposed them and stood between them and their plans and objectives."

Bin Laden sought to portray the U.S. as hopelessly mired in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. In an undated letter that appears to have been written in 2009-2010, he compared the American combat position to that of the Soviet Union in the final years of its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

"America appears to be hanging on by a thin thread. Due to the financial difficulties," he wrote.

"We need to be patient a bit longer. With patience, there is victory!"

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