Vanity, thy name is Osama

Vanity, thy name is Osama

TWO IMAGES: WHITE AND DYED An undated video frame released by the Pentagon on Saturday shows Osama bin Laden, his beard white and unkempt, watching himself on television at his Abbottabad hideout. In other videos he appears with his beard dyed and trimmed to rehearse for and film a propaganda video. (AFP, AP) Washington, May 7: The Obama administration on Saturday released five videos that show Osama bin Laden watching himself on television and rehearsing speeches, revealing that even from the walled confines of his Pakistani hideout, he remained a media maestro who was eager to craft his own image for the cameras. The videos, seized from Osama's Abbottabad hideout, were offered as further proof that Navy SEALs killed the world's most wanted terrorist this week. But they also served to show Osama as vain, someone obsessed with his portrayal by the world's media. Perhaps the most revealing video shows Osama sitting on the floor in a small room, his unkempt beard mostly white, wrapped in a blanket as he watches news clips about himself on television. He flips back and forth between what appears to be live news coverage of himself. The old, small television is 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 US released without sound, was titled "Message to the American People" and believed to be made sometime last fall, a senior intelligence official said during a briefing for reporters on condition of anonymity. The official said that Osama's concern about his appearance suggested that he was intensely interested in the image he presented to his supporters, and that he was deeply immersed in the propaganda efforts of the terrorist organisation al Qaida. That view contrasts sharply with earlier theories that he had become a marginal character who served as a figurehead for the group. The official described the Abbottabad compound as a command-and-control centre for al Qaida, where the group not only plotted attacks but was also deeply involved in the operations of Qaida lieutenants. Officials said the clips were part of the largest trove of 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, attacks Intelligence officials have known that Osama and al Qaida 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 Osama's suburban compound, they realised that a satellite dish provided a television feed to the compound. The video also reveals that Osama had a computer in his home, though officials say there were no Internet or phone lines running from the house.

NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE AND AP US tells Pak to name intelligence agents HELENE COOPER AND ISMAIL KHAN Children, who live in the neighbourhood where Osama bin Laden was killed, outside their house in Abbottabad. (AP) Washington, May 7: Pakistani officials say the Obama administration has demanded the identities of some of their top intelligence operatives. The US is trying to determine whether any of them had contact with Osama bin Laden or his agents in the years before the raid that led to his death early on Monday morning in Pakistan. The officials provided new details of a tense discussion between Pakistani officials and an American envoy who traveled to Pakistan on Monday, as well as the growing suspicion among US intelligence and diplomatic officials that someone in Pakistan's secret intelligence agency knew of Osama's location, and helped shield him. Obama administration officials have stopped short of accusing the Pakistani government of complicity in the hiding of Osama in the years after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. One senior administration official privately acknowledged that the administration sees its relationship with Pakistan as too crucial to risk a wholesale break, even if it turned out that past or present Pakistani intelligence officials did know about Osama's whereabouts. Still, this official and others expressed deep frustration with Pakistani military and intelligence officials for their refusal over the years to identify members of the ISI directorate, who were believed to have close ties to Osama. In particular, American officials have demanded information on what is known as the ISI's S directorate, which has worked closely with militants since the days of the fight against the Soviet army in Afghanistan. "It's hard to believe that Kayani and Pasha actually knew that Osama was there," a senior administration official said, referring to Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and the ISI director-general, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha. But, added the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue, "there are degrees of knowing". The increasing tensions between the US and Pakistan came as al Qaida itself acknowledged yesterday the death of its leader. NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110508/jsp/foreign/story_13954607.jsp