Osama bin Laden with his adviser Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2001. Hamid Mir, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
More than a decade ago, in 2011, the leader of al-Qaeda, an extremist Islamist terrorist organization, Osama bin Laden was killed in an operation carried out by the United States Navy SEALs in Pakistan.
The operation named Operation Neptune Spear was headed by SEAL Team 6 with intelligence from the CIA, the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), together with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), otherwise known as the Night Stalkers.
An aerial view of Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, taken by the CIA (Wikimedia Commons)
This elite military team’s mission was simple, locate and raid the bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and kill-or-capture Osama bin Laden. Although the mission’s objective was disputed by the US and several whistleblowers, stating that it was a kill mission rather than a capture.
Nevertheless, with the SEAL Team Six successfully completing the mission in less than 15 minutes, the threat of al-Qaeda was greatly diminished, making it the Obama Administration’s greatest military success.
In doing so, the world had a glimpse of the real personality of al-Qaeda and bin Laden himself. What were some of the weird things found within the bin Laden compound?
Children Cartoon Lover
The cartoon characters, Tom and Jerry, as seen on the Stamp of Albania. Post of Albania, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
After declaring hatred for Americans and the United States manifested in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, it would be unlikely that he would be consuming western forms of entertainment, right?
Well, as released, the CIA revealed that the terrorist had copies of Tom and Jerry.
Aside from various episodes of Tom and Jerry found on his laptops. They revealed that he was also a fan of other cartoons such as the Disney film “Cars,” “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” “The Three Musketeers,” and the British made”Shaun the Sheep,” to name a few. It’s possible that these were for his children, but it was also reported that beheadings and sexual content were also found on these devices, making it unlikely that children were using them.
Also found on his hard drives was a western superhero movie, Batman Gotham Knight. He also found the “Charlie Bit My Finger” YouTube video quite funny. And from our guess, he had a lot of narcissism as the CIA found several documentaries about himself on these devices.
Osama the Gamer
Mario, the main playable character in the Super Mario series. Photo by Boukaih on Unsplash
It was reported that western and Japanese-developed video games were present within the compound – making bin Laden and his associates quite the gamers!
Copies of Half-Life, a science fiction FPS game, were found within the rooms of the compound. Bootleg versions of Super Mario Bros., Yoshi’s Island Ds, Final Fantasy VII, and Dragon Ball Z run through PC emulators were also found.
Perhaps most striking, bin Laden had copies of Counter-Strike, an FPS game where a player would suit up as a terrorist or a counter-terrorist in a simulated arena.
Would you have ever thought of the possibility that you might have been playing with real-life killer Osama bin Laden while playing online Counter-Strike? It’s unlikely as the compound had no internet, but we can never know for sure – you might have been playing with him without even knowing it.
He also had a soft spot for Animal Crossing. Who would have ever thought that a terrorist would be playing a harmless game on emulators, right?
bin Laden had his kinks too
It’s a well-known fact that the Islamic religion considers nudity and pornography haram (or forbidden in English). Islam also follows the concept of purity, where men have to be married before having sexual intercourse with a woman.
Well, in bin Laden’s case, he was married to multiple women. However, the CIA also found many erotic games and many forms of pornography on his devices. The CIA has described this collection to be abnormally huge.
However, we’ll never know what Osama was into because the CIA did not release the files nor the names of the digital content due to copyright and moral reservations.
Motivational Videos
Osama bin Laden with Pakistani Journalist Hamid Mir, 1997 or 1998. Hamid Mir, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No, these are not bin Laden practicing for beheadings or other sexual content. These motivational videos were mostly him making speeches to be distributed to al-Qaeda cells.
He had a terrorist organization to run that made suicide bombings a signature tactic of their operations, so he must have had plenty of work crafting messages that appealed to recruitment.
Learn more about the operation
That’s our list about the outrageous things the SEALs found in Osama’s compound. If you want to know more about Operation Neptune Spear and the Navy SEALs, browse more of our content here.
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