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Videos show rare view of unkempt bin Laden
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
In this undated image taken from video provided by the U.S. Department of Defense, a man who the American government says is Osama bin Laden speaks in a video released on Saturday, May 7, 2011. The videos show bin Laden watching himself on television and rehearsing for terrorist videos.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
In this undated image taken from video provided by the U.S. Department of Defense, a man who the American government says is Osama bin Laden watches television in a video released on Saturday, May 7, 2011. The videos show bin Laden watching himself on television and rehearsing for terrorist videos.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
From a shabby, makeshift office, he ran a global terrorist empire. The world’s most-wanted man watched newscasts of himself from a tiny television perched atop a rickety old desk cluttered with wires.
For years, the world saw Osama bin Laden only in the rare propaganda videos that trickled out, the ones portraying him as a charismatic religious figure unfazed by being the target of a worldwide manhunt.
On Saturday, the U.S. released a handful of videos, selected to show bin Laden in a much more candid, unflattering light. In the short clips, bin Laden appears hunched and tired, seated on the floor, watching television wrapped in a wool blanket and wearing a knit cap. Outtakes of his propaganda tapes show that they were heavily scripted affairs. He dyed and trimmed his beard for the cameras, then shot and reshot his remarks until the timing and lighting were just right.
The videos were among the evidence seized by Navy SEALs after a pre-dawn raid Monday that killed bin Laden in his walled Pakistani compound. The movies, along with computer disks, thumb drives and handwritten notes, reveal that bin Laden still was actively involved in planning and directing al-Qaida’s plots against the U.S., according to a senior U.S. intelligence official who briefed reporters Saturday and insisted his name not be used.
“The material found in the compound only further confirms how important it was to go after bin Laden,“ said CIA director Leon Panetta in a statement Saturday. ”Since 9/11, this is what the American people have expected of us. In this critical operation, we delivered.”
The notes and computer material showed that bin Laden’s compound was a command-and-control center for al-Qaida, where the terrorist mastermind stayed in contact with al-Qaida affiliates around the world through a network of couriers, the intelligence official said. Bin Laden was eager to strike American cities again and discussed ways to attack trains, officials said, though it appeared that plan never progressed beyond early discussions.
Officials said the clips shown to reporters were just part of the largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever collected. The evidence seized during the raid also includes phone numbers and documents that officials hope will help break the back of the organization behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The videos showing “out-takes” — the miscues by bin Laden that were destined for the cutting-room floor — were offered as further proof of bin Laden’s death. President Barack Obama decided this week not to release photos of bin Laden’s body, which were deemed too gruesome to reveal. The U.S. has said it confirmed bin Laden’s death using DNA.
But by selecting unflattering clips of bin Laden, the U.S. also is working to shatter the image he worked so hard to craft.
“It showed that bin Laden was not the superhero he wanted his people to think,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.