Oren Dorell

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Years before the Islamic State broke off from al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden heard complaints from followers about the splinter group's growing independence and brutality in Iraq, new documents released Tuesday show.

Bin Laden's thoughts about al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Islamic State's precursor, are revealed for the first time in his own words in 113 documents released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The documents, including letters to associates, family members and “dear Muslim brothers and sisters,” were seized during the May 2011 raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where the founder and spiritual leader of al-Qaeda was killed.

The letters include his will and discussions on how to handle ransom funds received in return for a released Afghan ambassador.

Letters cast light on bin Laden's private life

In one letter, bin Laden responds to a list of grievances about excesses by al-Qaeda in Iraq, and reports from its leadership that they no longer answer to al-Qaeda’s central leadership.

“We heard from more than one person at the leadership level that they are claiming to be an independent state and to have no ties with (al-Qaeda),” said the letter writer, who went by the name Abu al-Abbas.

Al-Qaeda of Iraq formally broke with the parent group in 2014, when it renamed itself the Islamic State.

Bin Laden, who admitted being far from the battlefield because he was hiding in Pakistan, responded with disbelief to much of what was reported to him. “My brother, all of these strange stories are unfounded and unreliable and they contradict what we are already certain of,” he wrote.

Al-Abbas described members of “the State,” as al-Qaeda in Iraq called itself even then, as seizing property and cars of Muslims “on the pretext that they don’t wage jihad,” torturing people “just because they are suspicious of them,” and murdering 15 detainees of a rival militia, the 1920 Revolution Brigade, in Iraq’s Diyala province.

He also complained that followers of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Zarqawi were conducting “martyrdom operations” — suicide bombings — against members of the anti-American brigade and their mosques. Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2006.

The killing of the detainees caused the 1920 Brigade to cooperate with the Iraqi government, leading to the arrest and expulsion of of al-Qaeda fighters and the arrival of new American bases in the area, al-Abbas said.

Bin Laden dismissed many of the complaints of thefts and killings as exaggerated, incomplete or false, but said he was trying to gather information and provide guidance to the warring factions from afar.

“This thing (torture) happens a lot in the fields of jihad in general,” he said. “Perhaps (you are) relying on certain storytellers, whom you think are reliable but they aren’t.”

Still, Bin Laden said he would pass on the complaints and that he expected al-Qaeda fighters to refrain from attacks on anyone fighting American forces. “We are ordering you to stay away from anyone who is fighting the crusaders during this phase, regardless of whether they are atheists, secular Ba’athists, or infidels,” bin Laden wrote.

Despite the excesses, bin Laden eulogized Zarqawi as a "lion of Jihad" after his death. And while he acknowledged complaints about Zarqawi “killing some of the Iraqi people," he offered justification for those actions.

Zarqawi “had clear instructions to focus his fighting against the invader occupiers, starting with the Americans, and to neutralize those willing to be neutral,” bin Laden said. “But those insisting on fighting on the side of the crusaders against Muslims must be killed, whoever he may be, regardless of his sect or tribe.”

Bin Laden saved his harshest criticism for secular Iraqi legislators, who he said collaborate with the American enemy and are “without God.”

“Legislation is one of the most divine characteristics, and he who legislates for people without God, he has made of himself a god to be worshiped,” bin Laden wrote. “This is an infidelity that makes one expelled from Islam, and it is idol worship and a transgression against God.”

“Whoever allies and cooperates with the American crusader forces ... is an apostate and infidel, whose blood is lawful, and who must be killed,” bin Laden wrote.

In his handwritten will, 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 Associated Press reported.

In a document written three years before he was killed, bin Laden considered the possibility of a violent death. “If I am to be killed,” he wrote in a 2008 letter to his father, “pray for me a lot and give continuous charities in my name, as I will be in great need for support to reach the permanent home.”

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In another letter, addressed to “The Islamic Community in General,” bin Laden offered an upbeat assessment of progress in his holy war since the 9/11 attacks he orchestrated. The letter is undated but appears to have been written in 2010, according to the AP.

“Here we are in the tenth year of the war, and America and its allies are still chasing a mirage, lost at sea without a beach,” he wrote, an apparent reference to U.S. failings in Afghanistan.

“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.”

“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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