Osama bin Laden wanted to kill Obama since Biden 'unprepared'

Osama bin Laden hoped to assassinate President Barack Obama and grew frustrated with the "incompetence" of terror groups he was believed to be controlling during his final months alive, according to an analysis of letters found in his Pakistani hideout released on Thursday.

The Combating Terrorism Center, a research center at West Point, posted the declassified documents taken in the raid on the al-Qaida leader's Abbottabad compound that killed him last May.

In the letters, dated from September 2006 to April 2011, bin Laden said he wanted terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan to target planes with Obama and General David Petraeus - then commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan - on board.

He said that Obama's death would leave an "utterly unprepared" Vice President Joe Biden to handle the ensuing crisis.

According to the West Point study, bin Laden regarded many of al-Qaida's affiliated groups with disdain.

The CTC report said bin Laden "was not, as many thought, the puppet master pulling the strings that set in motion jihadi groups around the world," adding that he "was burdened by what he saw as their incompetence."

The letters show that bin Laden worried about Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Yemeni affiliate, which he wanted to attack the U.S. instead of the Yemeni government.

Bin Laden also apparently wanted to keep al-Qaida's Somalia-based affiliate, al-Shabab, at arm's length, the documents show, because he was concerned about its poor organization, management and brutality.

(with Reuters)