President Barack Obama’s administration Thursday lobbed another salvo in its public relations barrage timed to the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, releasing a small but intriguing batch of documents seized during the assault on his Pakistan hideout.

The public disclosure of the 17 documents found at the Al Qaeda leader’s compound followed a highly unusual TV interview with Obama in the White House Situation Room, as well as the president’s surprise trip to Afghanistan and address to the nation touting the success of the mission Navy SEALs executed on his orders.

Obama’s reelection campaign also pitched in late last week with a Web video paying tribute to the president’s courage in ordering the raid and asking whether his likely political opponent this fall, Mitt Romney, would have done the same. Romney’s campaign countered by accusing Obama of politicizing bin Laden’s death.

The documents – some written by bin Laden, some written to him and others that may simply have been in his compound when it was raided last May – provide insight into leadership struggles within Al Qaeda, the organization’s intense focus on commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and the group’s media strategy.

Vice President Joe Biden found himself a collateral casualty of sorts. One of the most notable memos made public was a bin Laden letter insulting the vice president and essentially exempting him from Al Qaeda’s efforts to kill leaders such as Obama and Gen. David Petraeus.

Bin Laden instructed top Al Qaeda operatives to avoid attacking Biden because bin Laden believed chaos would ensue if Biden assumed the presidency.

“Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make Biden take over the presidency for the remainder of the term, as it is the norm over there,” bin Laden wrote in the undated letter. “Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the US into a crisis.”

Bin Laden said he’d given orders to set up two teams, “one in Pakistan and the other in the Bagram area of Afghanistan – with the mission of anticipating and spotting the visits of Obama or Petraeus to Afghanistan or Pakistan to target the aircraft of either one of them.”

Obama was at the Bagram Air Base near Kabul earlier this week when he made his high-security visit to Afghanistan. He has not visited Pakistan as president.

The directive mentioning Biden is unsigned but references bin Laden’s sons in a way that identifies bin Laden as the author. The declassified collection, just a fraction of the thousands of hard-copy and electronic documents snatched during the raid, was made public on a website operated by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.

(Source: Politico)