Inside his lair, Osama bin Laden plotted to blow up Barack Obama

AN ENFEEBLED Osama bin Laden fretted over al-Qaeda’s media image while plotting the death of US president Barack Obama from his isolated compound.

Quoting from papers seized during the assassination of the terror chief, the Washington Post claims bin Laden dreamt of plunging America into crisis by blowing up the president’s plane and having him replaced by his deputy, Joe Biden.

He also hoped to change the course of the Afghanistan war by taking out US commander General David Petraeus in a similar manner. But with his position increasingly weakened and isolated, he hoped his No 2, Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri, would carry out the actual attacks on Mr Obama and Gen Petraeus.

Bin Laden’s plans are revealed in communications that were due to be sent to his top lieutenant, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. The papers were taken by the crack US Navy Seal squad that raided bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan last May, killing him in the process.

Set to be declassified and made public in the near future, excerpts given to the Washington Post seem to portray bin Laden as the broken boss of a failing crime syndicate.

According to US officials who have seen the papers, he brooded over his terror network’s brand image, which had been damaged by splinter cells that had killed Muslims.

He suggested in a draft letter to Atiyah that al-Qaeda’s name was so tarnished it should be changed.

Part of the problem, according to the bin Laden letters, was the election of Mr Obama. Officials in the new administration “have largely stopped using the phrase ‘war on terror’ in the context of not wanting to provoke Muslims”. Instead, the White House increasingly talked of a war against al-Qaeda, its leader said.

After his assassination, it was revealed that notes found at his Pakistani base suggested bin Laden wanted to launch a spectacular attack to coincide with the tenth anniversary of the 11 September atrocity.

US-born al-Qaeda media strategist Adam Yahiye Gadahn advised his boss to release a video to US news channels – but not Rupert Murdoch’s Fox network. “Let her die in her anger,” Gadahn wrote of the right-wing news station, adding the Fox network “lacks objectivity.”

Bin Laden is thought to have continued to hold an operational role in al-Qaeda until his death.

Regarding his plans to kill the two Americans, one of his messages reportedly said: “Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make Biden take over the presidency. Biden is totally unprepared for the post, which will lead the US into a crisis”.

Gen Petraeus is seen by bin Laden to be “the man of the hour”, the killing of whom would alter the course of the Afghanistan conflict.

The team that stormed bin Laden’s compound took away with them the terrorist’s personal journal, along with a treasure trove of documents and computer files.

Security officials in the US have downplayed the seriousness of the apparent plots against Mr Obama and Gen Petraeus.

They have been characterised as aspirations of the terror chief rather than concrete plans.

At the time they were written, al-Qaeda’s reach and potency had dwindled.