'Bin Laden Papers' To Be Topic Of Holmdel Library Author Talk

HOLMDEL, NJ — Nelly Lahoud, author and Islamic scholar, will discuss her book, "The Bin Laden Papers," at an upcoming talk at the Holmdel branch of the Monmouth County Library.

The event will take place on Thursday, June 15, at 10:30 a.m. at the library located in Bell Works, 101 Crawford Corners Road in Holmdel. Registration is required and you can register at this link.

"The Bin Laden Papers: How the Abbottabad Raid Revealed the Truth about Al-Qaeda, Its Leader and His Family," was published by Yale University Press in April 2022.

Committeeman Gregory Buontempo, library and veterans liaison to the Township Committee, urged residents and others to attend the talk by the author, who researched in Arabic thousands of documents, both personal and political, of Osama Bin Laden post 9/11.

Lahoud has said the documents are a "chronicle" of al-Qaeda's history after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

With the support of the Holmdel Library Foundation, each registrant for the event will receive a free copy of the book and have an opportunity to have the book personalized by Lahoud, Buontempo noted. He said Central Reach, an educational software company at Bell Works, will provide refreshments.

He said the talk is an excellent opportunity for the community to hear Lahoud, who was also interviewed on a "60 Minutes" episode you can watch on her website.

Here is the description of Lahoud's book from her website:

"Bin Laden’s greatest fear was not capture or death, but the exposure of al-Qaeda’s secrets. At great risk to themselves and the entire mission, the U.S. Special Operations Forces, who carried out the Abbottabad raid that killed Bin Laden, took an additional 18 minutes to collect Bin Laden’s hard drives and thereby expose al-Qaeda’s secrets."

Lahoud "dives into Bin Laden’s files and meticulously distills the nearly 6,000 pages of Arabic private communications. For the first time, al-Qaeda’s closely guarded secrets are laid bare. . ."

According to her website bio, Lahoud is an associate professor, Department of National Security and Strategy, U.S. Army War College; and a senior fellow, International Security Program, New America. Born in Beirut, Lebanon, her research interest in the Islamic tradition combined with world events led her to study al-Qaeda and its relations with other jihadi groups.