Osama bin Laden wanted to assassinate then-President Barack Obama, in part so that the “totally unprepared” Joseph R. Biden would become president.
The assessment of Mr. Biden, now the presumed 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, came in documents seized by U.S. forces in the 2011 raid that killed bin Laden.
The papers came in an order to al-Qaeda lieutenant Atiyah Abd al-Rahman to deputize others in a plan to shoot down a plane carrying Mr. Obama and Gen. David H. Petraeus.
“The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make Biden take over the presidency,” bin Laden wrote.
“Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour … and killing him would alter the war’s path” in Afghanistan, concluded the man who plotted the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and numerous others.
The papers were first reported on back in 2012 in a Washington Post column by David Ignatius, who said he had been “given an exclusive look at some of these remarkable documents by a senior administration official. They have been declassified and will be available soon to the public in their original Arabic texts and translations.”
Fox News highlighted the column Thursday.
Bin Laden told his deputy that Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri should lead the effort.
“Please ask brother Ilyas to send me the steps he has taken into that work,” he wrote to Abd al-Rahman.
According to Mr. Ignatius’ column, the Obama assassination plan never came close to fruition. By this time, al-Qaeda did not have the means to shoot down airplanes, administration officials told him.
A month after the bin Laden raid, a U.S. drone strike killed Kashmiri.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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