According to Lieutenant Colonel Crispin Black, a former UK Cabinet Office intelligence advisor to the Prime Minister, under the 'covenant of security' Islamist militants would be able to reside unmolested in Britain and plot to their hearts' content, as long as they refrained from targeting Britain or British interests.
Al-Rahman went on in the letter to explain how he had already responded to the British proposal:
"I wrote: we can consider the matter and come up with something appropriate along this vein. I will convey the idea to the leadership. He may have told the Libyan brothers by now, and they may have told the British."
However, bin Laden was intent on rejecting the proposal. A letter to al-Rahman from bin Laden dated 26th April 2011 records the latter's conviction that UK forces were "sure of being defeated":
"Regarding what you mentioned about the British intelligence saying that England is going to leave Afghanistan if al-Qaeda promised not to target their interests" I say that we do not enable them on that, but without slamming the door completely closed."
For bin Laden, the emphasis was on avoiding any such accommodations with the West, telling al-Rahman: "We would like to neutralise whomever we possibly can during our war with our bigger enemy, America."
Al-Qaeda had, in that context, offered a truce to bin Laden's Pakistani benefactors, on condition that they cease cooperation with the US: "You became part of the battle when you sided with the Americans. If you were to leave us and our affairs alone, we would leave you alone."
Extraordinarily, bin Laden was able to use his position from Abbottabad to freely threaten Pakistan with further domestic al-Qaeda terrorist attacks due to the government's ongoing coordination with the Americans.
The documents show that bin Laden remained obsessed with organising a "large operation inside America [that] affects the security and nerves of 300 million Americans."
As for the Middle East, bin Laden's 26th April letter further revealed that he saw the Arab Spring revolutions as an opportunity for the emergence of populist Islamic governments, largely led by the Muslim Brotherhood. He urged Rahman to warn "our brothers in the regions" of entering into confrontations with the parties belonging to Islam, and it is probable that most of the areas will have governments established on the remnants of the previous governments, and most probable these governments will belong to the Islamic parties and groups, like the Brotherhood and the like."
Al-Qaeda jihadists should cooperate with the emerging governments, "as the current conditions have brought on unprecedented opportunities and the coming of Islamic governments that follow the Salafi doctrine is a benefit to Islam."
The spate of meetings bin Laden had pursued with militants across Pakistan in the months before the raid were the terror chief's efforts to enjoin that vision and secure the support of comrades. Hekmatyar, for instance, whom bin Laden had met according to Shahzad Saleem, was already working on accommodating with the Americans. Bin Laden, however, was clearly against this strategy, and wanted to Hekmatyar and others to instead pursue his 'big tent' strategy to focus on hitting the US hard.
Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, today's al-Qaeda chief'--'previously bin Laden's senior deputy and right-hand man
(Image by fotosinteresantes) Details DMCA
In contrast, bin Laden's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had a very different strategy of response to the Arab revolutions. Inspired by his personal experience of the intolerance to "Islamic militancy" under US-backed Muslim regimes during the Cold War, Shahzad Saleem reported that in the months prior to bin Laden's death:
"Zawahiri therefore promoted the idea of ideological divides within the Muslim world, and encouraged revolts and terrorism to polarise societies to such a point of chaos that they would be unmanageable and amenable to Western intervention. It was believed that such intervention would open the gates for a battle between the West and the Muslim world."
The al-Qaeda number two"encouraged narrow ideological views in resistance movements as a strategy to boost revolts against Muslim-majority states," thoroughly different to bin Laden's new policy of a re-unification between al-Qaeda and other non-violent Islamist groups.
But Zawahiri's approach was "shot down" by other senior al-Qaeda leaders, including Sulaiman Abu al-Gaith and Saif al-Adel. They agreed with bin Laden's vision of al-Qaeda reviving contacts with old networks with "Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinian groups" to "join forces with mainstream Muslim groups" and launch a "joint struggle against Western interests in the Muslim world."
Zawahiri's plan was to play the long-game: rather than focusing on Western "heartlands" with spectacular operations, he wanted al-Qaeda to fracture the most strategic regions of the Muslim world, bogging down Western militaries in prolonged insurgencies that would, eventually, coalesce into a major confrontation.
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