In the weeks following the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by United States forces, U.S. Intelligence Community analysts sifted through the recovered digital and hard copy materials in search of clues that would reveal ongoing al-Qaida plots, identities and locations of al-Qaida personnel, and other information of immediate importance.
On May 20, 2015, the ODNI released a sizeable tranche of documents recovered from the compound used to hide Osama bin Laden. On March 1, 2016, the ODNI released a second tranche of material gleaned from the Abbottabad raid. On January 19, 2017, the ODNI released the final tranche of documents. These releases, which followed a rigorous interagency review, align with the President’s call for increased transparency–consistent with national security prerogatives–and the 2014 Intelligence Authorization Act, which required the ODNI to conduct a review of the documents for release.