Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 assault on the US, spent his final years fretting about how to keep his global terror network alive, planning big attacks and obsessing over minute bureaucratic details, scrutinising the resumes of candidates seeking promotion within al-Qaeda.
In a letter from 2010 from his Pakistan hideout – one of 17 missives released yesterday by a privately funded institution within the West Point military school – bin Laden demands to see the “detailed and lengthy” resume of Anwar al-‘Awlaqi.
An American of Yemeni descent, al-‘Awlaqi, was a regional commander for al- Qaeda and an imam, or religious leader, in Yemen, known for his fiery rhetoric and his talent in using the internet to recruit followers.