The trove of data shows that “this compound in Abbottabad was an active command and control center for al-Qaida’s top leader,” a senior U.S. intelligence official said in a briefing at the Pentagon. “Though separated from many al-Qaida members, [bin Laden] was far from a figurehead.”
The videos provide post-mortem glimpses of bin Laden in settings that are familiar and surreal. In one, a noticeably gray-bearded bin Laden huddles under a wool blanket and uses a remote control to flip through news footage of himself on a small television propped up on a broken desk.
The senior U.S. intelligence official described another video as a previously unreleased “message to the American people,” in which bin Laden stands before a blue backdrop, wearing a gold robe and delivering a speech in which he “repeats the usual themes by condemning U.S. policy and denigrating capitalism.”
The administration did not release any audio from the segments or a transcript of what bin Laden said. The official said the government was reluctant to give the al-Qaida chief a propaganda platform after his death.
The decision to release the footage — and the choice of which segments to share from a broader collection now in the possession of the CIA — appeared designed to provide new evidence that bin Laden was killed in the U.S. operation, and perhaps to present him in settings that might embarrass him or at least minimize his mystique.
The videos are part of a library of recordings that “would only have been in his possession,” said the U.S. intelligence official, who described other segments as fumbling “outtakes” from a terrorist leader who was “very interested in his own image.”
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the intelligence on bin Laden, who was killed in a pre-dawn raid Monday in Pakistan by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs. The official disclosed few details about the contents of the more than 100 computers, drives and assorted digital storage devices recovered at the compound, except to say that they show a continued focus on planning attacks against the United States and other Western nations.
The CIA has created a task force involving at least nine other agencies, including the FBI and the Defense Department, that is likely to spend months combing through a collection that includes “printed material, computer equipment, recording devices and handwritten documents,” the official said.
The haul represents “the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever,” the official said. Underscoring the pace of the effort in scrutinizing the materials, the CIA is said to be producing a new intelligence report nearly every hour based on the information being gleaned.
Already this week, the Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin based on intelligence gleaned from the bin Laden materials suggesting al-Qaida was plotting an attack on railways in the United States, perhaps to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Perhaps the most intriguing of the videos released is the recording that shows bin Laden, apparently squatting on the floor in a cold room, watching television news clips of himself.
He is shown wearing a black stocking cap instead of his standard white headgear, and gripping a remote control. On-screen is a menu of channels including al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya. The camera zooms in on his face — his beard gray instead of dyed black as in his propaganda videos — then pans back to show the al-Qaida leader watching scenes of himself in familiar news footage: brandishing an automatic rifle, navigating a rocky trail.
The intelligence official said it was unclear when the video was recorded, and that bin Laden’s beard was similarly gray when he was killed.
The most polished video, allegedly aimed at an audience in the United States, appears to have been recorded in October or November of last year, according to preliminary analysis done by the CIA.
Bin Laden’s location in the videos has not been determined, the official said, although in one he appears before a wood-paneled armoire that the CIA believes is a piece of furniture from the compound where he was killed.
The remaining videos show what appear to be practice sessions in which bin Laden glances down and then back at the camera, reading remarks before a wrinkled sheet, as colleagues fumble with the lighting.
The administration has not provided a catalog of the recovered materials, which include more than 100 disks and flash drives. But they believe he spent many hours on the computer, relying on couriers to bring him drives packed with information from the outside world.
He lived mostly in two indoor rooms of the compound except for daily pacing in his courtyard, near a lush inner garden framed by poplar trees. His once-large entourage of Arab bodyguards was down to one trusted Pakistani courier and the courier’s brother, who also had the job of buying goats, sheep and Coca-Cola for the household.
While his world had shrunk, bin Laden was still revered at home — by his three wives, his children and the tight, interconnected circle of loyalists in the compound. He did not do chores or tend to the cows and water buffalo like the other men. The household, U.S. officials figure, knew how important it was for him to devote his time to al-Qaida.
Abbottabad, a scenic hill cantonment for the British Raj and later home to the elite military academy that is Pakistan’s West Point, became the bin Laden family base in late 2005.
Bin Laden, now believed to be the tall man CIA officers watched pacing the courtyard from a surveillance post nearby, never left the large compound.
While much about his life in Abbottabad is still unknown, what has emerged so far, in interviews with U.S. and Pakistani military, intelligence officials and bin Laden’s neighbors , is a portrait of an isolated man, perhaps a little bored, presiding over family life while plotting mayhem.
“My father would not look forward to staying indoors month after month, because he is a man who loves everything about nature,” Omar bin Laden, a son of bin Laden, said in an email message in 2009. “But if I were to say what he would need to survive, I would say food and water. He would go inward and occupy himself with his mind.”
Though it appeared bin Laden was hiding in plain sight, the senior U.S. intelligence official said that after a preliminary review of the material seized in the raid, “we have no indication that the Pakistani government was aware that bin Laden was at this compound in Abbottabad.”
But the official indicated that the CIA and other agencies are exploring the data, and the names that have surfaced in the records, for any Pakistani government links. “We’re asking some questions, and the Pakistanis . . . are asking questions of themselves,” the official said.
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