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Bin Laden’s Secret Life in a Diminished, Dark World
NY Slimes ^ | 5/7/2011 | Elisabeth Bumiller

Posted on 05/07/2011 11:32:01 PM PDT by GVnana

Excerpted:

Videos seized from Bin Laden’s compound and released by the Obama administration on Saturday showed him wrapped in an old blanket watching himself on TV, like an aging actor imagining a comeback. A senior intelligence official said other videos showed him practicing and flubbing his lines in front of a camera. He was interested enough in his image, the official said, to dye his white beard black for the recordings.

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.

-snip-

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. Their large compound, in a new neighborhood on the outskirts of town, is now the most photographed house in the country, with stories spilling forth from astonished neighbors. Bin Laden, who was the tall man C.I.A. officers watched pacing the courtyard from a surveillance post nearby, never went out. The neighbors knew the family as Arshad Khan and Tariq Khan, the aliases of the trusted courier and his brother. The courier also went by the name Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 72versions; abbottabad; cia; obltermination
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To: AnAmericanAbroad

Cue Springsteen’s “Glory Days”.


21 posted on 05/08/2011 6:05:00 AM PDT by GnuHere
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To: AnAmericanAbroad

Well, there wasn’t any 40 minute blazing gun battle with this doddering old man. He was probably sleeping in his Barcalounger.


22 posted on 05/08/2011 6:07:34 AM PDT by Pinetop
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To: HiTech RedNeck
That is a rather weird name for a town and I wonder why the supposedly rabidly Islamic Pakistan kept it.

Its what enraged muslim mobs chant every Friday - "abottabadabottabadabottabad". It makes sense that they would keep it for this town's name.

23 posted on 05/08/2011 6:14:19 AM PDT by Spirochete (Sic transit gloria mundi)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
I hear it has a great view of Costellobad.

Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)

LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)

24 posted on 05/08/2011 6:25:44 AM PDT by LonePalm (Commander and Chef)
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To: GnuHere

He was simply suffering from a fear of a hellfire missile flying up his ass if he ever stepped out into plain sight.


25 posted on 05/08/2011 6:54:03 AM PDT by 2111USMC (Not a hard man to track. Leaves dead men wherever he goes.)
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To: Pinetop

Heh. I’ve got a vision in my head of OBL kicking back in his La-Z-Boy last Sunday, remote in one hand, Coca-Cola in the other, a bowl of popcorn on the floor in front of him, watching an old video of an interview he did with CNN back in 1997, and saying, “What the hell is up with all that racket outside?! I’m watching TV, dammit!”

But then again, I could be wrong about the La-Z-Boy; that’d be seriously upscale for his digs.


26 posted on 05/08/2011 7:01:19 AM PDT by AnAmericanAbroad
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To: LonePalm

ROFL!!! THanks for that.. :-)


27 posted on 05/08/2011 7:05:27 AM PDT by SueRae (I can see November 2012 from my HOUSE!!!!!!!!)
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To: AnAmericanAbroad

I am beginning to buy into the theory that Al Zawahiri flipped him to move up in the Al Qaeda hierarchy. Bin Laden was living with two couriers, a bunch of wives, goats and kids. Doesn’t sound too daunting for the Seals or too gutsy for our fearless leader.


28 posted on 05/08/2011 7:13:43 AM PDT by Pinetop
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To: Carley
Something weird. Yesterday I posted an article on this topic from the Daily Mail UK. Lots of photos with that article showing that bin Laden lived in sloth, and photos of him channel surfing to find news of himself. Then suddenly the title was changed to:

He's coming to get you: The day Osama Bin Laden sat glued watching TV of Barack Obama, the man who had him killed

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384573/Osama-Bin-Laden-sat-glued-watching-TV-pictures-Barack-Obama.html#ixzz1LmZOGugi

A title that doesn't match the original content of the article at all. Then the posting was pulled from FR without explanation. Weird.

29 posted on 05/08/2011 10:32:36 AM PDT by GVnana
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To: GVnana
Bin Laden, who was the tall man C.I.A. officers watched pacing the courtyard

So the CIA couldn't hire an out of work sniper?

30 posted on 05/08/2011 8:35:22 PM PDT by AmusedBystander (The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next)
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To: AmusedBystander

True, but how would they get a positive ID?


31 posted on 05/09/2011 8:10:58 AM PDT by GVnana
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