Home Movies of bin Laden Watching Himself on The News

KOMPAS.com - Extraordinary home videos taken from Osama bin Laden's hideout show the terrorist leader watching news coverage of himself on television.

The videos were seized by Navy SEALs after Bin Laden was killed Monday. They were shown to reporters this afternoon by intelligence officials.

The five movies offer the first public glimpse at Bin Laden's life behind the walls of his compound in suburban Pakistan.

The government-selected clips also provide an opportunity for the U.S. to paint Bin Laden in an unflattering light to his supporters.

The videos include outtakes of his propaganda films and, taken together, portray him as someone obsessed with his own image and how he is portrayed to the world - even from the confines of the compound.

The videos, released by U.S. intelligence officials Saturday, were offered as further proof that Navy SEALs killed the world's most wanted terrorist this week.

But they also served to show bin Laden as vain, someone obsessed with his portrayal by the world's media.

One of the movies shows bin Laden, his unkempt beard streaked in gray, sitting on the floor, wrapped in a brown blanket and holding a remote control.

He flipped back and forth between what appears to be live news coverage of himself. The old, small television was perched on top of a desk with a large tangle of electrical wires running to a nearby control box.

In another, he has apparently dyed and neatly trimmed his beard for the filming of a propaganda video.

The video, which the U.S. released without sound, was titled 'Message to the American People' and was believed to be filed sometime last fall, a senior CIA official told reporters today.

The videos were seized from Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. 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 September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Intelligence officials have known that Bin Laden and Al Qaeda monitored the news. But for years, when it was assumed that he was living in Pakistan's rugged, mountainous tribal region, some believed he might not be able to get real-time news.

After the CIA discovered Bin Laden's suburban compound, they realized that a satellite dish provided a television feed to Bin Laden's compound.

The video also reveals that Bin Laden had a computer in his home, though officials say there were no Internet or phone lines running from the house.

They emerged today as other video footage leaked to Al Jazeera showed the terror leader had been living in virtual squalor in Abottabad.

Strewn with rubbish and with paint peeling off the walls, the dirt-infested compound appears barely habitable and is a far cry from initial claims the compound was a sophisticated $1million hideaway.

The ramshackle structure resembles a building site and the pictures of the outside show steel rods protruding from the roof, suggesting it may have been incomplete.

Of course, some damage would have been caused during the American Navy Seal mission to capture the 9/11 mastermind, but the footage is still very revealing.

It was released today on the Al Jazeera English website and gives a shaky tour of what appears to be the inside of the main house, a few outbuildings and a small fruitless orchard.

The stash is part of a wealth of information collected during the U.S. raid that killed Bin Laden and four others last week.

The information suggests Bin Laden played a strong role in planning and directing attacks by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates in Yemen and Somalia, two senior officials said.

Information collected in the haul also suggests that top Al-Qaeda commanders and other key insurgents are scattered throughout Pakistan, not just in the rugged border areas as previously though, and are being supported and given sanctuary by Pakistanis.

Despite protests from Pakistan, defeating Al-Qaeda and taking out its senior leaders in Pakistan remains a top U.S. priority, demonstrated by the attempted assassination attempt on the man tipped to replace Bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen on Thursday.

The U.S. remains defiant despite complains from Islamabad that the raid on Bin Laden's compound violated the country's sovereignty, an anonymous senior defense official said yesterday.

But the U.S. is bracing itself for retaliation following the assissination with the Taliban in Afghanistan warning that Bin Laden's death will only boost morale of insurgents battling the U.S. and its NATO allies.

Al-Qaeda itself vowed revenge, confirming Bin Laden's death for the first time but issuing a chilling warning that Americans' 'happiness will turn to sadness'.

Following last week's raid, the U.S. has already launched a drone strike into Pakistan as well as the one in Yemen, in the days since bin Laden was killed.

The strikes have been out by pilotless CIA drones as U.S. military and intelligence officials attempt to take advantage of the data they swept up in the raid before insurgents have a chance to change plans or locations.

The raid on Bin Laden's compound deep inside the Pakistan border has further eroded already strained relations between Washington and Islamabad, and angry Pakistani officials have said they want the U.S. to reduce its military presence in their country.

The Pakistani army, while acknowledging it failed to find Bin Laden, said it would review cooperation with the U.S. if there is another similar attack.

Pakistani officials have denied sheltering bin Laden, and they have criticiced the U.S. operation as a violation of their country's sovereignty.

But a senior defence official said recent protests by Islamabad about the raid will not stop the U.S. from moving against terror leaders that threaten American security.

President Obama has made it clear that the U.S. will take action wherever necessary to root out Al-Qaeda, which has declared war on the United States and has been using Pakistan as a base to plot and direct attacks from there and other insurgent locations around the world.

The official also said there are no plans to scale back U.S. training of the Pakistani frontier corps and army. But the decision is up to Pakistan.

U.S. administration leaders have been careful not to directly accuse the Pakistani government of being complicit in the existence of sanctuaries that have cloaked bin Laden and his lieutenants.

But it strains credibility that the most wanted man in the world could have been hiding there in a large compound without Pakistani officials knowing.

Counter-terrorism officials have debated how big a role Bin Laden and core Al-Qaeda leaders were playing in the attacks launched by affiliated terror groups, particularly Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen, and al-Shabab in Somalia.

According to officials, information gathered in the compound suggests that Bin Laden was much more involved in directing Al-Qaeda personnel and operations than analysts had thought.

It also suggests bin Laden was 'giving strategic direction' to Al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, the source said.

Officials say they have already learned a great deal from Bin Laden's cache of computers and data, but they would not confirm reports that it yielded clues to the whereabouts of Al-Qaeda deputy Ayman al-Zawahri.

Al-Zawahri is a leading candidate to take bin Laden's place as the leader of the terror group. On Friday, President Obama with the U.S. commandos who killed Bin Laden.

'Job well done,' the president declared, addressing roughly 2,000 troops after meeting privately with the full assault team - Army helicopter pilots and Navy SEAL commandos - who executed the dangerous raid.

Their identities are kept secret. Meanwhile, the house - which the U.S. government described as as a $1m mansion in an 'extraordinarily unique compound' in an 'affluent suburb', is in fact worth no more than $250,000 say local experts.

It can be added to the mounting descriptions which have proved incorrect, such as that Bin Laden was armed when killed, and that he had used one of his wives as a human shield.

But two property professionals in Abbottabad said that based on the size of the plot and the house, which was built in 2005, and using recent property sales as a guide, it was worth a quarter of the original estimate at best.

'Twenty million rupees, maximum,' said property dealer Muhammad Anwar, a 22-year veteran of the local market, at his Abbottabad office. 'No swimming pool. This is not a posh area. We call it a middling area.'