Osama Bin Laden was about to branch out into kidnapping in order to raise funds for his cash-strapped Al Qaeda operations, investigators have revealed.
The terrorist had previously relied on massive donations, using the cash for sustenance, including training, weapons, paying for operatives and their families and money for bribes and hideouts, officials said.
But other Al Qaeda cells around the world had already shored up their finances by targeting diplomats, tourists and merchants and demanding enormous ransoms of up to $2m a person.
Bin Laden knew about the activities and was looking at how he could use kidnapping to raise much needed funds, US officials said.
The details were revealed in papers recovered from the war lord's hideout in Abbottabad, northwestern Pakistan, where he was killed by U.S. Navy Seals on May 2.
'There are clearly times for them when money is tight,' said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.
'We've seen that their donors have been less dependable and we're seeing them turning more to kidnapping as a way of keeping the money coming in.'
Experts from the CIA's National Counterterrorism Center, the Treasury Department and the FBI and military are trying to learn more from the recovered files about Al Qaeda money sources and the impact of bin Laden's death on the group's financial future.
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