Osama bin Laden left $29m for global jihad

One of the documents seized in the house where bin Laden was killed by US special forces in 2011 is believed by the Americans to be his will.

The hand-written note, thought to have been composed in the 1990s when bin Laden lived in Sudan, set out how he wanted $29m (£21m) to be distributed.

He said 1 per cent of this sum should go to Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, a senior al-Qaeda militant who used the nom de guerre Abu Hafs al Mauritani.

Another 1 per cent was to be given to Abu Ibrahim al-Iraqi Sa’ad for helping to set up bin Laden’s first company in Sudan, Wadi al-Aqiq Co.

‘For the sake of Allah’

But bin Laden wanted his relatives to spend most of the $29m on holy war/jihad.

“I hope for my brothers, sisters and maternal aunts to obey my will and to spend all the money that I have left in Sudan on jihad, for the sake of Allah,” he wrote.

Bin Laden wanted some of the money distributed to his mother, a son, a daughter and other relatives.

In a letter dated 15 August 2008, he asked his father to take care of his wife and children in the event of his death.

‘I entrust you well for my wife and children’

“My precious father: I entrust you well for my wife and children, and that you will always ask about them and follow up on their whereabouts and help them in their marriages and needs,” he said.

In a final paragraph, he asked his father for forgiveness, “if I have done what you did not like”.

The documents have been translated from Arabic and declassified by US intelligence.

Bin Laden, who was behind the 9/11 terror attacks in the US in 2001 in which nearly 3,000 people died, was killed in a raid on his home in Abbottabad, Pakistan, five years ago.

The Saudi militant lived in Sudan for five years as a special guest of the government, but was told to leave in 1996 under pressure from the US.