Officials: Bin Laden eyed small cities as targets
Though hunted and in hiding, Osama bin Laden remained the driving force behind every recent al-Qaeda terror plot, US officials say, citing his private journal and other documents recovered in last week's raid. Bin Laden's written words show that counterterrorist officials worldwide underestimated how key he remained to running the organization, shattering the conventional thinking that he had been reduced through isolation to being an inspirational figurehead, US officials said Wednesday.
Until Navy SEALs killed him a week ago, bin Laden dispensed chilling advice to the leaders of al-Qaeda groups from Yemen to London: Hit Los Angeles, not just New York, he wrote. Target trains as well as planes. If possible, strike on significant dates, such as the July 4 Independence Day and the upcoming 10th anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Above all, he urged, kill more Americans in a single attack, to drive them from the Arab world. (AP)
