He probably was killed in Tora Bora but we had to kill the myth that he was still alive. Either way he’s bye bye.
What had jumped out at me, long before the “raid”, was that the nature of his messages to his followers changed. Early ones were video in nature, and timely. After a certain point (perhaps the Tora Bora bombing campaign), they changed to audio tapes only, and were much more vague and general messages...in other words, something that could have been put together from splicing bits of older recordings together. But...nobody in bureaucracy was willing to risk declaring him dead.
Even after the “raid”, I’m still a bit suspicious.
More in the link
There is also this from the Esquire (Long Read