Videos show bin Laden watching TV

Newly-released videos show Osama bin Laden inside his hideout, watching himself on television and rehearsing for terrorist propaganda videos.

The videos, released by US intelligence officials yesterday, were offered as further proof that Navy SEALs killed the world’s most wanted terrorist last week. But they also served to show bin Laden as vain and obsessed with his portrayal by the world’s media.

One of the videos shows Bin Laden, wrapped in a brown blanket and holding a remote control, flipping back and forth between clips of himself.

The small television was perched on top of a desk with wires running to a nearby cable or control box. In another, he has apparently dyed and neatly trimmed his beard for the filming of a propaganda video.

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 organisation behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

For years, when it was assumed that Bin Laden was living in Pakistan’s rugged, mountainous tribal region, officials assumed bin Laden might not be able to get real-time news.