 Welcome to the event. We are going to discuss the bin Laden papers which is Nellie who it's excellent new book, which got very favorable reviews already in the Washington Post. Nelly was subject of an entire segment on 60 minutes on Sunday about the book and her work. Nelly is a fellow at New America. She's worked at West Point. And in fact she was the first she led the team at West Point that was the first to get the first tranche of documents from about about after the bin Laden raid and published the first paper about led the group that published the first paper about the about about papers and she has been working on the about about papers for really a decade now. So we're delighted that she's going to share some of her findings. And then I'll engage her in Q&A and then open it up to questions if you do have questions. Put them in the Slido, and I will relay them to to Nelly so over to you. Thank you Peter for this very generous introduction and as I make it clear in the acknowledgements to the book that this is all possible because if you Peter and your support and mentorship were crucial throughout. I also benefited from other New America colleagues. Special thanks to David Sturman. New America also afforded me the resources to work with two very capable research assistants whose contributions will become apparent during the course of my presentation. I'd also like to add that I was exceedingly fortunate that the great historian of Islam, Michael Cook, read and commented on all the draft chapters of the book. And so did my friend Gary Apple, a brilliant playwright who gave me most valuable comments from a general readers perspective. My editor at Yale University Press, Joanna Guthrie, Joe championed this project before I was even ready to put together a book proposal and how fortunate I was that the superb Ashley Valley at 60 minutes took interest in my research. I have a different kind of thank you to add. The entire book is really a footnote to 18 additional minutes that the special operations forces spent in the abutabad compound to recover the files that form the basis of this book. The abutabad mission was supposed to be completed within 30 minutes. Admiral McRaven who oversaw the raid had completed a study published back in 1996 in a book entitled special ops that explored eight historical special operations missions. And had concluded that speed was critical to achieving relative superiority by a small attacking force over a potentially larger and well defended enemy. In his estimation, relative superiority is achieved, if the mission is completed within 30 minutes, and any delay equates with vulnerability. In his more recent book, see stories, Admiral McRaven recounts that as the seals were nearing their allotted time window, the raid, they requested additional time on the ground. Captain van Hoezer, who oversaw the technical execution of the mission explained, and I'm quoting sir, they say they found a whole shit ton of computers and electronic gear on the second floor. Now, minutes earlier, the ground commander had communicated on the radio for God and country, Geronimo, Geronimo, Geronimo. The code for we had gotten bin Laden, but McRaven immediately recognized the intelligence value of recovering bin Laden's files. So he gave the go ahead. He kindly shared with me that at about 40 minutes, he told the seals to wrap it up, and about eight minutes later also we took off. So the book owes its existence to the perilous eight additional 18 minutes that the soft team spent in the compound. And thanks to their heroism, we have about 6000 Arabic pages of archaic internal communications. I should note that the journey of writing this book didn't start with 6000 Arabic pages on my desk. Between 2012 and 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the ODNI declassified several batches of files, first through the CTC at West Point as Peter just noted, then directly on its own website. The ODNI conveniently categorized these files, and so the internal communications were readily accessible. But in November 2017, the CIA declassified thousands of files, a massive volume consisting of text files, audio and video. For the purpose of this book, I determined that the text files were the most important. With the help of two research assistants who are native Arabic speakers like me, we systematically went through all the text files, nearly 97,000 text files. Most of them turned out to be materials that are open available in the open source such as newspaper articles and so on. But the bulk of archive does internal communications existed within these files, in addition of course to those that had already been declassified through the ODNI. We identified the internal communications that my solar work on the book proceeded. The nearly 6000 Arabic pages allow us to put together a chronological account of the key events that defined Al Qaeda in the decade between 911 and its founders demise in 2011. They are brimming with revelations and lay bare al-Qaeda's closely guarded secrets and serve as a corrective to existing narratives about the group. We discover that flying planes into buildings when it was in fact in Laden's idea and not that of Khalid Sheikh Rahman. The papers also provide an unparalleled insight into the fate of al-Qaeda post 911, including the nature of its role in global Shi'aad. They take us into the bin Laden household, where nine out of the 16 people who lived there were children. We learn about their daily lives, and we discover that most of the public statements that we heard bin Laden deliver over the years were effectively co-authored by his daughters, Mayim and Simeon. The papers also shed light on ongoing policy issues, such as al-Qaeda's mistrust of the Afghan Taliban, the effectiveness of drones as a counterterrorism tool, the continued questions concerning al-Qaeda's relationships with countries such as Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, making it abundantly clear that al-Qaeda is not just a non-state actor, but an anti-state actor. And unexpectedly, I was able to piece together how bin Laden's security was compromised by identifying who his real career was. He was not, as the CIA narrative claimed, Abu Ahmad al-Qaeda, who lived on the same compound and was killed during the raid. To be clear, I don't know what went right for the CIA, but I have a solid idea of what went wrong for bin Laden. I'm happy to discuss any of these themes during the Q&A, but let me focus on the remaining minutes that I have about al-Qaeda's fate post-911. We discover an afflicted al-Qaeda to use the description of its leaders. When the Taliban regime collapsed in December 2001, al-Qaeda was effectively shattered. Bin Laden had to disappear out of necessity, and he cut off all communications with his associates. When he resumed contact in 2004, most of al-Qaeda's senior leaders were either killed or detained by Pakistan and Iran. The second-tier leaders, who were still at large, apprised bin Laden's in their letters of their afflictions and made it clear to him that it was no longer safe for them to stay in the al-Qaeda region. They were hiding mainly in the fatah, the federally-administered tribal areas of Pakistan. As early as 2004, perhaps even earlier, they feared being betrayed by a large segment of the Afghan Taliban. Their dreary letters included one promising item. When God knew of our afflictions and helplessness, one letter read, he opened the door she had for us in Iraq. We should move all the brothers to Iraq. Clearly, the 2003 Iraq war appeared like a lifeline for al-Qaeda. To be clear, al-Qaeda had nothing to do with the rise of jihadists in Iraq. And in 2004, it was Abu Musab al-Zarkawi and not bin Laden, who was the most powerful leader on the jihadi landscape. Al-Qaeda didn't roll out sending his brothers to Iraq, but his first decision was to require his brothers to hide. This was an order and not an advice, he wrote to them. He authored sending Hamza al-Rabiyah, whom he appointed as the leader of international terrorism, to go to Iraq and to set up an independent unit dedicated to orchestrating international terrorism. Before Hamza al-Rabiyah had a chance to pack his bag, he was eliminated by a drone strike. Al-Qaeda's ability to mount international terrorism did not recover. Though the leaders of al-Qaeda cheered some of the international attacks attributed to al-Qaeda, their role did not go beyond being spectators. The CIA drone campaign ensured that hiding became their modus operandi. The drones were unquestionably an effective tool against al-Qaeda and other militants in the fatah. Al-Qaeda's leaders refer to the drones as a calamity with which we have been afflicted. To be sure, it wasn't all the CIA is doing. Al-Qaeda's security committee admitted that in our voting, after careful and precise examination, we have concluded that the demise of all the brothers who were killed by drone strikes resulted from their own mistakes. The enemy's success is not due to their brilliance or modern superior technology, but rather it has to do with the brothers repeatedly neglecting to comply with basic security measures that should be cleared to everyone by now. According to the papers, al-Qaeda security committee believed that it worked out not just how the drones operated, but also how they could be evaded. The rest of the drones, they believed, relied on spies on the ground sending signals to locate the target. Al-Qaeda was convinced that Pakistan's ISI was helping the CIA by recruiting spies. But al-Qaeda security committee was also convinced that it was simple to evade the drugs. All the brothers needed to do was to hide. When I said earlier hiding became al-Qaeda's modus operandi, I wasn't exaggerating. Now, avoiding carrying arms in the streets, the simple act of taking the car to the garage was sufficient to compromise al-Qaeda's security and hasten his martyrdom. By the end, we find bin Laden urging his brothers to evacuate the fatah altogether and to move them to other cities in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda's associate told him that the men prefer dying in the fatah rather than risk moving to cities where they could be captured by the ISI. While the drones were raining devastation on his brothers in the fatah, bin Laden continued to itch for more international terrorism. Al-Qaeda's leaders repeatedly told him that we can barely move and our circumstances do not permit us to spend money on terrorist attacks. By 2002, 2010, he warned that al-Qaeda was in decline and unless it changed its strategy, it would come to an end as an organization. He spent most of that year devising a new strategy that in his mind would achieve a balance of terror with the United States. He methodically planned to sink a large number of crude oil tankers carrying oil to the United States, prioritizing the largest vessels. He thought of all the details. Large surveillance methods, the specific wooden or rubber boats that would evade being detected by the radars nearby vessels, to the volume of explosives necessary, and the arch position that should be shaped, that the volume should be shaped to penetrate deep into the vessels. You get the picture. I did not take his words for it. I consulted my friend, Commander Kurt Albert from the US Navy, who told me that for the most part, bin Laden had done his homework. Ultimately, bin Laden's goal was to thrust the United States into a severe economic crisis, adversely affecting the income of every American citizen. He predicted that the American people would take to the streets, replicating the anti-war protests against the Vietnam War, and demand that their government changes its foreign policy and withdraw its military forces from the Middle East. To be clear, this was exactly the objective that he had hoped to achieve through the 9-11 attacks. And though he continued to refer to the 9-11 attacks as a victory, he admitted in his letters that the attacks did not deliver the decisive blow that he had expected. So if 9-11 didn't, what made him think that sinking oil tankers would? The answer lies in who bin Laden was, and we get to know him pretty well through the papers. We don't really need to study 6,000 pages to conclude that bin Laden was a mass murderer. But by itself, this description risks suggesting that bin Laden succeeded in his political endeavor. Bin Laden was convinced that by sacrificing his fortune, and of course if he had, he was helping fellow Muslims who suffer the yoke of dictatorships. He firmly believed that if the United States stopped its support of the dictators who rule over Muslim majority states, then she had used could fight these regimes on a level playing field and would easily bring them down. He miscalculated on so many fronts. Bin Laden's papers paint a picture of a devoted father and husband, a caring leader who worried about his men and their families, but ultimately a failed terrorist leader who, shockingly I should note, lacked a basic awareness of the limits of terrorism and a below-then-sophomoric understanding of international relations. By the end of my research on the book, I was also surprised by how the counter-terrorism community had hyped up the image of al-Qaeda for years, allowing one of bin Laden's top associates to write in the same paragraph, and I'm quoting, Though we have not succeeded in mounting an international terrorist attack, we are nevertheless achieving our objective, namely terrorizing and deterring the enemy and engaging them in a war of attrition. Indeed, the enemy are spending much money on their security and are terrorized on an ongoing basis. They do not feel secure at all. They admit this and are certain. What I am trying to say is that we are advanced, even if we do not succeed in carrying out a specific attack, because we are succeeding. Effectively, you are saying we're operationally impotent, but they don't know it. Thanks for the papers we now do. Thank you. It's just to run through a few questions that you just raised. There's a common narrative that the Pakistanis must have known that bin Laden was in the bad-a-bad. Sy Hersh wrote a piece in the London Review of Books that essentially said that the raid was a joint operation between this Pakistan and the United States. That's a very extreme view of the Pakistanis must have known. But Sy Hersh got a lot of publicity for this piece of journalism. In fact, so many people logged on to the London Review of Books website that it crashed when his piece came out because basically it suggested that the raid in a bad-a-bad was sort of essentially a fake that was cooked up by the Americans and the Pakistanis. So let's just start with that. Is there any truth to any element of Hersh's theory? I do mention Hersh's theory in the book and I am a fan of Sy more Hersh, but on that, on that account, actually, even a cursory reading of the letters would make it very, very clear that bin Laden and his associates went to great lengths to avoid being detected and to avoid the local Pakistani authorities. Now, I don't know what the Pakistanis authorities knew, but I can be sure of the letters. They clearly, as Hersh claimed, that somehow they had held bin Laden a prisoner. I mean, you know, if they did, bin Laden didn't know it. And it was the way the security measures that they adopted were impenetrable and as far as impenetrable until they did. And as far as the local Pakistani authorities were concerned, there were two local Pakistani brothers who lived in the compound. Abu Ahmad al-Qaweiti and his brother, both of them with their families. And, you know, there was, you know, the bin Laden family, you know, they didn't allow their children, they didn't allow children and grandchildren, all the children to lay outside. So clearly, they were not really living comfortably or feeling secure. So I can't see and I mean, we also don't need just the letters. I mean, bin Laden and Aiman al-Zawahi public statements against the Pakistani authorities calling on Pakistanis to take up shiha against their government. I mean, if they really knew that he was, that bin Laden was there, why not get rid of him? Why not eliminate him? What was, I can't see the wisdom of the Pakistani government to actually keep him, to keep him there. So I find this to be, I mean, you know, the papers really show that there is no basis for Pakistan enabling him. Yeah, and there's no evidence just to clarify, leaving aside Pakistan's sort of essentially conspiracist view of what happened. A lot of people just say, well, look, he was a mile away from the Pakistan's version of West Point. Therefore, somebody in the Pakistani national security apparatus must have known. Is there any evidence in the, all the letters and all the memos that you've read that suggests he had any dealings with anybody in the Pakistani government or military or had anything other than a hostile view of Pakistan's national security and government. They are throughout consistently hostile. I mean, there are reference to Pakistani brothers, and they were working particularly in the fatah. There were so many anti-state, all the Pakistanis in the fatah. The reason why they went and tried to hide in the fatah is because they were all opposed to the Pakistani government. So there isn't a single reference that showed any collaboration with the Pakistani government. In fact, Bin Laden's public statements were so hostile against the Pakistani government that at one point Bin Laden's top associate in the fatah urged him, could you please turn it down, because they are killing us out here. They were convinced, as I said in my presentation, they were convinced that the Pakistani ISI, Pakistan's ISI, was collaborating with the CIA, was helping the CIA in terms of in the drone campaign. And they were urging, could you please turn it down, because we can't really bear it. Maybe if we told them that we don't want to fight you, we're just fighting the Americans, maybe they'll leave us alone. So clearly the hostility is beyond question. The hostility towards Pakistan is unquestionable. And then switching gears, you also mentioned Iran. So, you know, during the Trump administration in particular, although it had been also the case in previous administrations, there's sort of a narrative, that strength is Iran and al-Qaeda were, in some sense, allied. And, you know, obviously there was, as you know well, quite a number of Bin Laden's family members and also leaders of al-Qaeda were living in Iran under some form of house arrest for much of the decade after 9-11, and some of that continues even to this day. But what's your analysis of the relationship between Bin Laden al-Qaeda and Iran based on these documents? Actually, this is actually quite related to Pakistan, because for a long time, as you know, Peter, I already did a study from New America, and I was very certain, judging by the letters that, you know, there is nothing that shows that Iran was enabling al-Qaeda. But what I really couldn't work out is that why would al-Qaeda go to Iran in the first place if they hated them so much? And this is really where it was very helpful to have looked at all the papers. And this is when I realized that early Iran, this was not an option for them. But what they did in the aftermath of operation and during freedom, some of them fled to Pakistan. And in Pakistan, there were arrests. There was this comprehensive campaign of arrest where they discussed that 600 brothers or more were actually captured so they had no other option but to cross illegally into Iran. Now in Iran, it was not just a question of house arrest. This is what Bin Laden had hoped that his family and others would be under house arrest. They were actually in much more miserable conditions. And at a certain point, you know, they were all put in one compound under security measures. They were all living together. They didn't provide. The Iranian authorities didn't provide basic services in terms of the children's schooling in those places. The women and children weren't afforded medical attention. At some point, they revolted. The al-Qaeda people revolted against the prison authorities. And many of them were injured, including Suleyman Abu-Waith. And another time, they also revolted. So it was at least twice they revolted. To be clear, there was a prison riot, essentially. Precisely. And at one point, when Iran started releasing the prisoners as a result of al-Qaeda taking on a capturing, kidnapping an Iranian diplomat. Perhaps because there were other reasons, not just the diplomat. There were other reasons why they started releasing them. They were a headache for the Iranians. And, you know, we know that when Bin Laden's wife, Kheria, and their son Hamza were released, al-Qaeda senior leaders sent a message through Hamza to his father that you really need to do your best to help us get out of here. And please don't worry if we're going to be martyred in the fatah. We'd rather be martyred rather than stay here in those conditions. So again, there is absolutely no basis for any of the reporting that suggests that Iran was helping al-Qaeda. And also there is no basis for any of the reporting that suggests that Saudi Arabia helped al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda, to be clear, for those of us who've been studying al-Qaeda for a long time, it's al-Qaeda 101. Al-Qaeda rejects the nation-state system. It's not going to be really doing the bidding for any of these state actors. So it's, I'm afraid, you know, this is, and yes, it wasn't just the Trump administration. It was also the Obama administration, and I remember reading at one point the director of the National Intelligence, James Clapper claiming that there is a marriage of convenience between al-Qaeda and Iran. And frankly, that has to be the most inconvenient marriage of convenience that I've ever heard of. But what about, I mean, just give the counter argument would it be Iran did house these? I mean, they may not have been housed in a particularly pleasant fashion for a decade after 9-11 senior leaders of al-Qaeda were living in Iran and quite a number of bin Laden's family members. So what does that, how would you characterize, even though it was not comfortable for them and there was a prison riot, two of them, in fact, as you point out, they were living under house arrest, not great, they would have preferred to be somewhere else. But this was, it is something. So what is it? So firstly, put yourself in the shoes of Iran. You know, they haven't had diplomatic relationships with the United States since 1998. Do they really want them to hand them over to, you know, what sort of do they really want to do the United States a favor? You know, it's understandable from according to their politics that they don't want to help the United States. But there was more to it than that. And I think Iran, like the United States, overestimated al-Qaeda's operational abilities. And some of the letters, you know, again, I don't know what the Iranian thoughts, but judging by what the al-Qaeda detainees thought and al-Qaeda themselves, that the Iranians wanted to use them as a bargaining chip against so that they would be able to put pressure on what was particularly on what was going on in Iraq. And there is a very strong letter that at some point, bin Laden's daughter, she drafted, and it was supposed to come out under her name. You know, it was addressed to Khamenei, to the supreme leader of Iran. And she told him that you've been putting pressure on us throughout this time, and I want to let you know and make it clear to you that my father will never compromise his principles, even if you were to sacrifice all his children and grandchildren. It couldn't be any clearer that al-Qaeda had no interest in compromising its principles to enable Iran. But what al-Qaeda did, and it felt pressured by the fact that most of al-Qaeda senior leaders and their families were in Iran. So the thing that al-Qaeda didn't do is to speak publicly about this. They kept the lid on it. And Iran didn't speak publicly about it. So there was this kind of almost, if you like, an understanding that we don't talk about it, but they were both scared. Iran was hoping that, you know, if it keeps a lid on it, al-Qaeda would not attack them. They really didn't know that al-Qaeda didn't really have the capability to attack them. Because when al-Qaeda's leaders came together and they said, you know, we really have to do something about Iran, because everybody is accusing us of being supported by Iran. You know, the most that they could do is perhaps start a PR campaign against the Iranians. They didn't have any, they didn't have, you know, the detainees in Iran had more power to do something against the Iranian authorities than al-Qaeda was able to do something against Iran. So yes, both of them decided to go along and not discuss this issue, not make it public. They served Iran. And it didn't, though it didn't serve al-Qaeda, it didn't, it, you know, they still thought that they could get the detainees. Now the turning point, it's not just the riot in prison, and it's not just the diplomat, the Afghan diplomat. The turning point is when bin Laden's daughter Iman escaped from detention, and she went through, went all the way to the Saudi embassy. And the situation became public. Her brother, who is in Syria, Abdel Rahman, spoke with Al-Jazeera and publicized it. And this is at that point when bin Laden asked his daughter to write this letter addressed to Khamenei I, but then he stopped it and then the same letter ended up coming out on Shihadi websites signed by his son Khalid. But that was really the turning point. And we know it's a turning point because the remaining detainees were told by one of the Iranians, the, you know, their, their, you know, the prison guards, they told them, now that it's become public, we have to let go of this. We have to, we have to start releasing. Now they didn't effectively release everybody at that time. But once Iman made the detainees public, because the Iranians had been denying it, yes, and of course that was not true. But once this became public, they had to do something about it. And they started, they started, they continued to do the release. So a variety of questions coming in, which relate root to the 777 July 7 2005 London attack. And then the planned attack on planes from 2006. So what do you make of. What are the documents say or not say about that. How would you rate the possibility that that these were linked to Al Qaeda but didn't make it to bin Laden or into the documents or does it say something about the, what are the limits of using the documents as a way of establishing the truth or falsity of something. You know, firstly, on a number of basis or firstly, there isn't, there are no, no letters that that show that Al Qaeda was involved and Al Qaeda was involved in so many other things in terms of cheering attacks, but there are no suggestions in the single suggestion that Al Qaeda was behind any of these facts. Now, of course, you might say well, maybe, maybe the letters are missing, but with or were not recovered and there were letters that were not recovered, but when subsequent letters 2005 and starting 2004. 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 when all these letters are. Keep talking about the operational impotence when bin Laden kept criticizing the brothers who are in charge of the international terrorism unit. There were two, two brothers that come up in in those letters. One is Abu Salih al-Sumali, the other is Abu brother Tufan. And, you know, these, these two people, you know, firstly, Tufan is, is somebody who is completely incompetent. His writings is like a kitchen sink approach to terrorism, Abu Salih al-Sumali writes about why we haven't succeeded. These are limited letters. And bin Laden really impatient with these, with these two people. We find a man as a Wahidi referring to brother to his brother Tufan, as you know, and here we see a bit of a sense of humor of a man as a Wahidi, where at some point, you know, it appears that brother Tufan writes about everything and wants to do everything. And he started writing about medicine. And we find in one of al-Sawahidi's letters that he had said to Tufan that, you know, even cooks and butchers have much more things to say about this plane, you know, that your own comments. And so completely, the international terrorism unit was completely incompetent. Now, at a certain point, when bin Laden really wanted those attacks to sink these oil tankers attacks, and the person who's going to lead these units al-Maritani in one of his letters to bin Laden, he explains to him that he had nothing to do. He has nothing to do with the international terrorism unit. And it's, it is that poor. And we find bin Laden throughout telling, telling Atiyah, you know, maybe you need to do something, maybe you need to replace them. And Atiyah keeps saying, you know, I'll give them some guidance. And so, not only are there no, no suggestions that, you know, no suggestions that they were, that they were involved in these attacks, but continued repetition in the letters that they were, that they lacked resources, that they couldn't be operational. That suggests to me that, that just as I mean, you know, some of the other attacks, for instance, I mean, the attack against the CIA officers that killed the CIA officers, I kind of heard about it from the news. I kind of heard about it from the news. And when bin Laden saw the, the, the testament of Abu Dujana al-Khurasani, the jihadi you carried out the attack, he was fuming because Abu Dujana al-Khurasani said that this was, that this was to avenge the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. And, and Pakistani said, and bin Laden said, surely he should have said, this is for Palestine, not to avenge people. So, you know, on so many of these operations that we thought that it was, that were reported to have been al-Qaeda, we know from the letters that it was not al-Qaeda. You mentioned the Taliban. This is from former New America fellow Asana Baal, who's a professor at National Defense University. What about bin Laden's views about Mullah Omar, and what, what's the relationship obviously with the Pakistani Taliban, is the Afghan Taliban? Sure. So the, the, the, the relationship between the Afghan Taliban is much more complicated than, than I ever thought. And now, you know, because of the letters, I went back to some of the earlier jihadi sources that were available publicly. And, and I'm referring specifically to the writings of Abu Musab al-Suri. Now Abu Musab al-Suri tells us in a book that he wrote in 1998, that Mullah Omar was very supportive of the jihadis in Afghanistan, but many senior leaders within the Taliban were not. So I do question the issue that somehow Mullah Omar didn't know about the 9-11 attacks. My sense is, and judging by the bin Laden that we get to know, bin Laden wouldn't lie to Mullah Omar. In my sense, and also judging from bin Laden's own notes, he consulted with everybody. Everybody knew about the attacks that would be carried out by al-Qaeda from Afghanistan. There were challenges at times, but bin Laden did not lie to anybody, and it's not as if it came out of nowhere. Having said that, the operational executions of attacks, nobody knew about them. Not even bin Laden sometimes knew about the operational execution of certain attacks. That was part of al-Qaeda's way of doing business in terms of secrecy was very, very important. So judging by the letters, we find that throughout the decade after 9-11, bin Laden and his associates, Iman al-Zawahiri and others, continued to respect Mullah Omar. They continued to think that he was steadfast, and he was a great support for the sincere jihad. Mullah Omar was not alone. There were other sincere Taliban as well. But there were many other insincere Taliban around. And those who actually went on the names, in fact, Mullah Baradar and others, some of those who actually ended up going through entering into negotiations with the United States, they were described by al-Zawahiri and by bin Laden as traitors, hypocrites, and long before the peace agreement with the Taliban that was concluded in 2020. Long before that, al-Zawahiri feared that this was going to happen and that the Taliban would agree to such a peace deal that would render al-Qaeda independent. And the nightmares came true in 2008. So I think the issue is, I based on the letters, bin Laden continued to have loyalty to Mullah Omar. I cannot believe that he lied to Mullah Omar. But the situation, the Afghan factionalism is a problem not just for al-Qaeda, but for the Taliban themselves. A question from anonymous. Basically, would you agree with the idea that al-Qaeda was in a sense likely Harvey Oswald, somebody who was essentially trivial, who got lucky once. It's a question that gets to the idea that 9-11 was the height of their power and a lot of things went right for them and then after that a lot of things started going wrong for them. So, you know, they were behind 1998, East Africa bombings, they were behind al-Qaeda was behind the USS Cole, and to be clear, al-Qaeda was behind the 2002 Mombasa bombings in November 2002, but the reason they were able to pull it off. It was against a hotel in Israeli-earned hotel and against Israeli airliners that they did, those attacks in Mombasa. So al-Qaeda was behind those attacks. But the reason they were able to pull it off is because the operatives had been dispatched to East Africa. At the end of 2000 or early 2001, they had left Afghanistan before operations and freedom. So it got lucky. I don't think, you know, I don't think that it got lucky once I think that they're more than just got lucky. And one thing that I would like to add about this, what is important to keep in mind is the methods that bin Laden adopted and he carefully was, and he clearly was a master at planning. He doesn't, he prefers, his preference is for very basic attacks that you can actually carry out by going to home deeper or basic swords that could not be evaded, that could not be penetrated by technology. Simple attacks that could produce spectacular events. And for all the efforts that I know many governments are doing in terms of cyber security and surveillance and so on. His methods continue to be, should be, we should be worried about his methods. Well, because they cannot be penetrated. They cannot be really, you know, for somebody like like bin Laden. And as you very well know, Peter, he was, he refused to use the internet. He refused to use the telephone. That's how he managed to evade the authorities for so long. So, and I'm not suggesting we should stop cyber security and so on all of this. But, but when when we're talking about, you know, being able, for instance, one of his attacks for 2004 that he had hoped to carry out, were about derailing trains in the United States. And he precisely described how the operatives could remove about 12 meters of rail, so that, you know, the trains could be derailed. This is something very, you know, you could use, you could use a compressor hydraulic jack, you know things you told them where they could buy them You know, nobody, nobody could actually find out what you're buying. You could do them in the, you know, at night you can, you can work on these things, things that are very difficult. You know, if you maintain secrecy, as, as archaiders operatives were trained to do. So for attacks that could really evade. Much of the surveillance that we have. The Arab Spring started happening in the last several months have been a lot of his life course he didn't know that his life was going to end. The events of the Arab Spring were gathering steam but you mentioned his daughters playing a role in editing and writing his speeches. Obviously, you also mentioned Hamza, the wife with the PhD who suddenly reappeared in February of his life, having been in a house arrest and she reappeared and about about in February of 2011 so the audience, you know, kind of what role the daughters played the role of his two wives with PhDs and kind of how he approached things. You know, Peter, I had learned from your earlier work about about the fact that his wife's had PhDs I didn't, I didn't know that before certainly we don't have their PhD certificates but it was very helpful to know from your work that they had PhDs because the very first letter that I read of those letters I've been declassified by the CIA was by his, by his wife see Ham, whom you discuss she has a PhD in chronic grammar. And the first paragraph of that letter she's writing it to her daughter, Hadija and in it she says, you know I'm writing to you in haste because I'm helping your father with his public statements. That was an eye opener. And, but, but clearly later on, and I see from the names of the files, and the family notebook, the how involved the daughters Maria Mansoumia where with their, with their father. It's interesting that when Hadija managed to make it, we also know because of Hadija because when she managed to make it to Abbott Abad in February 2011. Her son Hamza was still in north of Tehran. She was writing letters to him. And in those letters she was telling him about Maria Mansoumia and praising them and singing their praises and she'd say to him that their writings are being broadcast on television, meaning that when they're, when the father and bin Laden was was delivering his writings and being broadcast. This was what what the girls were doing they were doing that. We know, for instance, the Arab Spring draft statement. This took a long time to draft the situation was highly unpredictable. The state that the events were were both a source of a source of proud pride for for the bin Laden household, but they were also, they were left with many question marks earlier on in the notebook. So may I tells her father. I didn't see anybody discussing the brothers in al-Qaeda, and then you know, bin Laden saying, Oh, I heard a journalist mentioned al-Qaeda before. So they're really struggling to see whether he had still has an ongoing relevance and we find some of the names of the files there, their name under the name, you know, under Sumeya's name under many of his name. This is their edits going it went through at least 16 files, we find bin Laden explicitly soliciting their input, and so on. And so the, the wife's role, I mean, clearly, Siham played a played a very important role, and Haidiyah less so simply because she was detained for 10 years and in, in Iran, but it is very clear that this was not something that that bin Laden only did in Abu Tabaad because his one of his letters to Haidiyah when he thought that she wasn't going to be able to to join him, his security guards refused to allow Haidiyah to join him for a while. And he wrote to her and he said, you know, we're all, you know, it's not going to happen. I'm sorry that you're not going to be able to join me, but we are all preparing public statements that will be delivered to be delivered to celebrate the 10th anniversary of 9 11. So you could do things to help me here I'm sharing all the things that I have on my computer if you have any ideas to help us, please share with me your ideas so clearly he thought, just as he thought well of Siham, he thought very well of Haidiyah. And so that that suggests to me that that the wives were always played a supportive role in in bin Laden's life and in fact we have some of the poetry by Siham that she she composed for her daughter's engagement back in 1999. So political, so political. Let's get you mentioned this, this notebook is a family notebook that they began writing as the Arab Spring. It was mischaracterized by the CIA it's a bin Laden journals really a bin Laden family journal. The sketch the scene for us a little bit about. Why did they, you know, why did they start writing this notebook in early 2011 and how to, you know, what was the purpose and who was contributing and the younger wife doesn't a mile doesn't seem to appear at all so what was happening inside the compound as they were writing this 224 page or diary or journal. And this was actually a second notebook. The first notebook had not been recovered. And here's what I sketch the what happened, the cover page of that notebook does say that this was going to be about the last memoirs that is bin Laden's memoirs. And the reason I think the CIA made this mistake is because the first few pages were a form of a kind of Q&A between bin Laden and his daughter. Now here's what happened, according to nearly now. The archaic leaders had sent Osama bin Laden, a list of questions that wanted him to write the biography or something that they would keep on the he had your website. They sent him a 40 page list of list of questions to start, you know, about his earlier career is earlier life. So that would that would kind of help him put together his his career and about his journey. So he and his daughter had started doing this and the first page of few pages. This is what they were doing. Now, the cover page says that this is a continuation of volume one. So clearly they run out of people. And they were working on the first volume. And they had this one because they had to, they had to stop doing his his they they prioritize the events of the Arab Spring over his biography. So they have plenty of more blank pages on this one so they kept going with using using that that would have been starting either March 6 or March 7, I think, when they started recording these but clearly they had been doing it before. And the notebook also, I expect that they had many of these notebooks and the notebook also was used to summarize some of the things that were being said on the radio and on occasions. So on one page and this is when I found out that it was actually his daughter who is transcribing it because on one of the page, she is writing her own notes. She uses the feminine declension. And this is when I got it. Yeah, this is this is certainly a female voice here and in one other sentence she says the father so I clearly put the two together that I realized that it was it was a daughter transcribing it. But it was also used as a sort of to draft the letters so later on at the end of the notebook. We find, you know, what are the notes that are going to go into the letter. So, bin Laden and his order are sitting down. They discussing what the what the letter to idea bin Laden his top associates going to include. We find them taking it, taking notes on this. So it wasn't just family conversations that had a multipurpose use. I suspect that there were many more notebooks like that that have been destroyed but specifically, I think they had started writing about the Arab Spring on a notebook earlier than March 6. Does that raise kind of an interesting question about what the limits of documents are because you're saying that there were previous notebooks that haven't were either destroyed or weren't recovered or, you know, the thing. I mean, it's an unanswerable question on some levels but. And none of you absolutely right and I think I do say earlier on in the book that not everything was recovered. And I didn't write a complete narrative, but I did write on the basis of what we have I didn't try to to go on and say so for instance I didn't. I didn't take the secondary sources. I didn't try to reconcile the letters with secondary sources because after I saw that there is a complete radical gap between the secondary sources and some of the letters, particularly on issues like Iran with Pakistan and so on and so forth. I decided that I was going to allow the letters to, you know, to speak, even if it's an incomplete narrative, I would rather have an incomplete narrative, rather than reconcile it with secondary sources. Now, but there are as many historians would say and particularly those who work on archives, we can always sometimes reconstruct certain things from the existing. So there are there are many instances when I didn't know what was the original question was, but I knew that the question was being put. There were certain letters that included certain things that I didn't know had been raised, and I only found out about them in the letters that were responding to these questions. So we can always reconstruct certain elements that, you know, certain elements of the letters but but of course and I, and I made that very clear in the book that I am producing an incomplete narrative. In the three minutes we have left to one quick question from the audience. How many people were part of al-Qaeda around 2010 just give us an estimate based on what you know, I couldn't say I couldn't say what I want to what I also want to say is that for instance, and I don't want to underestimate this, for instance, Eunice al-Muritani who is, who is somebody who is tasked by bin Laden to carry out, to lead the unit to carry out these oil tankers. This is somebody who really impressed me, his letters that impressed me impressed bin Laden quite a lot. This is somebody that I hadn't heard of before, before the raid. So I wonder whether there were, you know, how many others that we don't know of. I don't, you know, I can't, I can't speak about numbers. It's, but there are many, many other militants who are operating in the fact that had nothing to do with that. And just in the two minutes we have left. You know, what was bin Laden's attitude to the Arab Spring because obviously there was a certain. He was excited about it but you also knew you had nothing really to do with it so what was he in the last weeks and months of his life of his life. He was excited about this event, which was in his own mind so momentous. He initially he rejoiced, he really rejoiced that they were able to bring down the dictators, but as I said, he was naive about international relations he thought that that somehow we're going to be able to guide these protesters that you know will have will this Ashura council that will give them advice and someone, I mean these protesters were really not going to. We're not going to buy into our kindness funds. And this is where, you know, the, it is, it is horrifying how ignorant was about international relations. And this is this is ultimately on that basis that he should have, he should be judge. Well, Nellie, thank you for the presentation. Thank you for the great work that bin Laden papers doing very well on Amazon as we speak please get yourself a copy. I want to thank Dr who for this presentation. Thank you for listening to this and will wrap it right now. Thank you.