Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden followed developments in Kashmir, David Headley

Washington: Former al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden closely followed developments in Kashmir and the trial of Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley in the 2008 Mumbai attack case, according to documents released by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The documents were seized from a Pakistani compound where the Qaeda founder was killed in a US raid in 2011.

According to the news material, the 9/11 attacks mastermind closely followed news related to the arrest of Lashkar-e-Toiba operative Headley and was a regular reader of some of the top Indian publications.

The massive amount of new material released on Wednesday contains nearly 470,000 items totalling 321 gigabytes of data.

It includes audio, video and text files found on devices recovered from bin Laden's compound, where he lived with his wife and children along with two couriers and their families.

The CIA also released bin Laden's 228-page personal journal, written by hand in Arabic.

The Qaeda leader was killed in the May 2, 2011, raid by US Navy SEALs after nearly 10 years in hiding following the September 2001 attacks.

An Indian Express article titled ‘Omar Sheikh’s Pak handler Ilyas Kashmiri also handled Headley‘ was found from the computer of Laden in Abbottabad. The article was dated November 16, 2009.

A Press Trust of India story headlined ‘Al-Qaeda helping Taliban to destabilise Pakistan Government: Gates’, dated February 9, 2010, was also found on Laden’s computer.