Methodology

Most of the evidence undergirding claims of state support for Al-Qa‘ida’s terrorism is not available in open sources. As a result, accusations of state support are marred by politicization, with states like Iran and Saudi Arabia each accusing the other of harboring and/or enabling Al-Qa‘ida.

Captured battlefield documents are a different genre of literature. Internal communications among Al-Qa‘ida members and their families provide a unique window into the group’s decision-making and the immediate (and long-term) considerations that were on the minds of its leaders when these documents were drafted.

Examined and analyzed systematically, such documents offer what one may term Al-Qa‘ida’s voice, unfiltered by the group’s desire to project unity and strength publicly or by the strategic interests of rival powers summarizing Al-Qa‘ida’s objectives and tactics.

Accusations of state support are marred by politicization, with states like Iran and Saudi Arabia each accusing the other of harboring and/or enabling Al-Qa‘ida.

Given Al-Qa‘ida’s enmity toward Iran (and other states), evident on the pages of many of its internal documents, Al-Qa‘ida’s voice cannot serve as a reliable source on the inner workings of Iran and other states’ policies. However, its voice can point to the type of activities resulting from Al-Qa‘ida’s alleged relationship with Iran. When such communiqués concern operational activities, they are an invaluable source of information.

The corpus of captured internal documents is extensive: The Harmony Program, consisting of captured battlefield documents provided by the U.S. Department of Defense, is home to a very large collection. The Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) at West Point has served as the principal outlet for making Harmony documents available to the public; it is also through the CTC that the first 17 declassified documents, recovered in the raid on the compound of UBL in Abbottabad, Pakistan, were released in 2012.¹ Subsequently, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) released three batches of declassified materials in 2015 (103 items), 2016 (113 items) and 2017 (49 items), recovered during the same raid, dubbing them “Bin Laden’s Bookshelf.”² In November 2017, the Central Intelligence Agency released “nearly 470,000 additional files”³ recovered during the same raid.

This report canvassed all the declassified documents released by the CTC in May 2012 and those released by the Office of the DNI in 2015-17. In addition, this study analyzes two key documents released by the CIA in November 2017: a 19-page document that was likely written by a jihadi operative and a 220-page document erroneously described as UBL’s handwritten journal.

While Al-Qa‘ida’s internal communications help avoid some of the challenges arising from reliance on politicized statements by rival states, they pose their own challenges for analysis. The CTC rightly warns that “there is no way to know just how representative documents captured by U.S. forces are of the larger body of information produced by al‐Qa‘ida or other insurgents.”⁴

This report canvassed all the declassified documents released by the CTC in May 2012 and those released by the Office of the DNI in 2015-17. In addition, the study analyzes two key documents released by the CIA.

Other considerations are also warranted. For instance, the extent to which the documents represent the inner worldview and/or working of the group is not always evident: Some documents consist of rough drafts with several duplicates, their author(s) unknown; it is not known which draft was adopted or whether the author’s vision was embraced by the group or dismissed; and it is not always evident if a letter reached its intended destination. In short, not all captured battlefield documents are equal as far as their value to understanding Al-Qa‘ida’s views.