[ONLINE] - The Bin Laden Papers: How the Abbottabad Raid Revealed the Truth about al-Qaeda

Bin Laden’s greatest fear was not capture or death but the revelation of al-Qaeda’s secrets. When he was killed in May 2011, U.S. Special Operations Forces took an additional eighteen minutes to collect Bin Laden's hard drives on which al-Qaeda’s most secret communications were saved. In her ground-breaking book, The Bin Laden Papers: How the Abbottabad Raid Revealed the Truth about al-Qaeda, Its Leader and His Family, New America Senior Fellow Nelly Lahoud distills the content of nearly 6,000 pages of Arabic language private communications. For the first time, al-Qaeda’s closely guarded secrets are laid bare, shattering misconceptions and revealing how and what Bin Laden communicated with his associates, his plans for future attacks, and al-Qaeda’s hostility toward countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan.

Speaker:

Nelly Lahoud

Senior Fellow, New America International Security program

Author, The Bin Laden Papers