The Sun
A RAGING Osama Bin Laden plotted to assassinate Barack Obama because he hated being left out of the spotlight after 9/11, says an expert on the terror chief.
Peter Bergen interviewed the killer’s family members and associates, who said the monster wanted to be the centre of attention as the tenth anniversary of the horrific September 11th attacks approached.
Bergen, who is CNN’s national security analyst and a bestselling author, has published astonishing new details in biography, The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden.
In it, the bin Laden expert says that while he inflicted the most lethal act of mass murder in US history – he failed to achieve any of his strategic goals.
The al-Qaeda leader plotted the hijacked-plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the trade centre, at the Pentagon outside Washington and in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2001.
But, a decade after, while he was in hiding in Pakistan during 2011, he felt like “history was passing him by”, and he was annoyed at being “ignored”, the bombshell book adds.
Bergen explains that paranoid bin Laden wanted to organise a massive terror event – such as murdering President Obama, to coincide with the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
Bin Laden’s carefully constructed hideaway was coming apart.
Expert And Author Peter Bergen
He had apparently considered killing Joe Biden, then the US leader’s vice-president, but decided against it, as he wasn’t as high-profile as Obama, and seemed “totally unprepared” for the presidency.
Bergen also describes the zealot’s many contradictions: he was the son of a billionaire, but insisted his family live like paupers.
The terrorist leader was fanatically religious, yet willing to kill thousands of civilians in the name of Islam.
He inspired deep loyalty however, in the end, his disgruntled bodyguards turned against him.
According to Bergen, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal: “In the first weeks of 2011, Osama bin Laden was worried.
“For five years, he had concealed himself and his extended family – wives, children and grandchildren – in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, but now it appeared that his carefully constructed hideaway was coming apart.
“Bin Laden’s bodyguards had become fed up with the risks that came with protecting and serving the world’s most wanted man.”
TERROR MONSTER KILLED
The vile mass murderer begged his fed-up brothers – who were “exhausted” by constantly hiding his whereabouts – to find a new hideout and protectors.
“Bin Laden never did find a new hiding place, however.
“He was killed, along with his son, Khalid, his two bodyguards and one of their wives, when US Navy SEALs raided the compound on May 2, 2011,” Bergen adds.
The lasting image we have of bin Laden in his final years is of an ageing man with a greying beard watching old footage of himself.
He died in a squalid suburban compound, far from the front lines of his beloved holy war.
Bergen says: “Al-Qaeda’s leader is one of the few people of whom it can truly be said changed the course of history.
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“Who could have predicted that in the two decades following the 9/11 attacks he masterminded, the United States would wage various kinds of military operations in seven Muslim countries – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen – at the cost of more than $6 trillion and more than seven thousand American lives?
“In addition, tens of thousands of soldiers from countries allied to the United States died, as did hundreds of thousands of ordinary Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Pakistanis, Somalis, Syrians, and Yemenis who were also killed during the ‘war on terror’.”
This story first appeared in The Sun
