Bin Laden hunched, seated on the floor, watching television wrapped in a wool blanket and wearing a knit cap

For years, the world only saw the 54-year-old Osama bin Laden in the rare propaganda videos that trickled out, the ones portraying him as a charismatic religious figure unfazed by being the target of a worldwide manhunt.
On Saturday, the U.S. released a handful of videos, selected to show bin Laden in a much more candid, unflattering light. In the short clips, bin Laden appears hunched and tired, seated on the floor, watching television wrapped in a wool blanket and wearing a knit cap. Outtakes of his propaganda tapes show that they were heavily scripted affairs. He dyed and trimmed his beard for the cameras, then shot and reshot his remarks until the timing and lighting were just right.
The videos were among the evidence seized by Navy SEALs after a pre-dawn raid Monday that killed bin Laden in his walled Pakistani compound. The movies, along with computer disks, thumb drives and handwritten notes, reveal that bin Laden was still actively involved in planning and directing al-Qaida’s plots against the U.S., according to a senior U.S. intelligence official who briefed reporters Saturday and insisted his name not be used.
“The material found in the compound only further confirms how important it was to go after Bin Laden,” said CIA director Leon Panetta in a statement Saturday. “Since 9/11, this is what the American people have expected of us. In this critical operation, we delivered.”
The notes and computer material showed that bin Laden’s compound was a command-and-control center for al-Qaida, where the terrorist mastermind stayed in contact with al-Qaida affiliates around the world through a network of couriers, the intelligence official said. Bin Laden was eager to strike American cities again and discussed ways to attack trains, officials said, though it appeared that plan never progressed beyond early discussions.

But by selecting unflattering clips of bin Laden, the U.S. is also working to shatter the image he worked so hard to craft.

“It showed that bin Laden was not the superhero he wanted his people to think,” said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

One video clearly shows the terror leader choosing and changing channels with a remote control, which he points at what appears to be a satellite cable box. U.S. officials have previously said there was a satellite dish for television reception but no Internet or phone lines ran to the house. Cellphones were prohibited on the compound.

White House Revises Bin Laden's Final Moments

Who knows whats true anymore, but the White House is now telling a different story in reference to Bin Ladin's final moments. This is the 3rd version.

Killing Osama bin Laden was a big victory for the U.S., but how exactly the raid went down is another story — and another, and another.

Over two days, the White House has offered contradictory versions of events, including misidentifying which of bin Laden’s sons was killed and wrongly saying bin Laden’s wife died in gunfire, as it tries to sort through what the president’s press secretary called the “fog of combat” and produce an accurate account.

Reading from a script carefully crafted by the Defense Department,White House Press Secretary Carney clarified that bin Laden was not armed with a gun when he was killed, contrary to some reports that he fired back at U.S. military operatives. In addition, White House counterinsurgency adviser John Brennan was wrong when he suggested Monday that one of bin Laden’s wives was killed serving as a human shield for bin Laden during gunfire.

“In the room with bin Laden, a woman -- bin Laden’s wife -- rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed. Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed,” Carney said. Separately, another woman on the first floor was killed in crossfire, which may have led to Brennan's misstatement.

The White House spokesman wouldn’t say whether bin Laden had any kind of weapon when he was killed or what kind of resistance he put up. Carney said only, “There was concern that bin Laden would oppose the capture operation and indeed he resisted.”

Carney also retraced the steps by which bin Laden’s body was buried in the North Arabian Sea. The body was washed, placed in a white sheet and in a weighted bag, at which point a military officer “read prepared religious remarks” that were translated into Arabic by a native speaker. The body was then “placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, and the deceased body eased into the sea,” he said.

The White House is still mulling whether to release a picture of bin Laden killed. While releasing such a photo would confirm once and for all to naysayers that bin Laden is dead, "It's fair to say it's a gruesome photograph," Carney said.

Bin Laden the "Coward" Hid Behind a Lady Before Being Killed

Abbottabad, Pakistan - It took 10 years to find him—and just 40 minutes to take him out.

Two Black Hawk helicopters—carrying 20 to 25 elite Navy SEAL commandos armed to the teeth with weapons and night-vision goggles—departed on their ultra-secret mission from the Ghazi air base in northwest Pakistan under cover of darkness at around 12:30 a.m. Monday local time in Pakistan (3:30 p.m. Sunday in New York).

It was the moment that America had been dreaming about since 9/11—finally nailing terror chief Osama bin Laden.

But the unit, SEAL Team Six, wasn’t in some wild, lawless region of Pakistan. Instead, it was about to land in leafy, suburban Abbottabad, Pakistan, just a short drive from the capital of Islamabad and less than a mile from a Pakistani military academy.

As the team reached its destination—a heavily fortified, nearly windowless, triangular compound in the area—the SEALs prepared to be dropped to the ground.

For weeks, at the Bagram air base in neighboring Afghanistan, the US military counterterrorism team had been training for the assault in an exact replica of the compound. Their mission was so top secret that they weren’t even told at first who they were training to capture.

They had planned to hover over the compound in the aircraft and then rapidly rappel down ropes, landing inside the structure’s 12- to 18-foot walls to surprise their prey—the al Qaeda founder code-named “Geronimo”—and his cohorts inside.

But in reality, the operation turned hot immediately.

Guards loyal to the terror kingpin spotted the choppers and opened fire with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

Then, suddenly, one the MH-60 choppers—infamous for crashes, including one in 1993 in Mogadishu—apparently stalled in midair, either from mechanical failure or enemy gunfire.

Disaster loomed even before the first American boot could touch soil.

“It was probably one of the most anxiety-filled periods of time, I think, in the lives of the people who were assembled here,” said John Brennan, the White House chief terrorism adviser, who, like President Obama, monitored the assault in real time from the Situation Room in DC. Aided by a SEAL’s helmet cam, they watched in amazement as the hero US pilot at the helm of the disabled chopper refused to accept defeat.

He managed to make a rough but controlled landing, and his team and that from the other chopper leaped into action, guns blazing.

“Bullets were flying. It was very frightening,” Gul Zaman, a trader who lives about 200 yards from the bin Laden lair, told The Times of London.

The SEALs were fighting to make their way to their goal—the main, three-story building in the center of the $1 million compound surrounded by barbed wire.

Intelligence indicated that bin Laden was living on the second and third floors, which conveniently had 7-foot walls surrounding their balconies, perfect for a 6-foot-6 man like bin Laden to discreetly stand outside in the fresh air without being seen.

But while he might have been hidden to the outside world, he wasn’t out of sight of US satellite cameras. In recent months, he had been apparently photographed leaving the main house every day to spend an hour walking around the courtyard, CBS reported.

One photo eventually caught him inside the house, presumably by a window, and was rushed straight to Obama, who then started stepping up hush-hush meetings for the attack. This was around mid-March, according to The Daily Mail of London.

US authorities also said they had other proof that bin Laden was in the compound.

They said they had a voice recording of him there that had been picked up by a CIA microphone. They analyzed it with past confirmed recordings—and they were a match, the Mail said.

At the time of the assault, there were roughly 20 men, women and children—some bin Laden’s relatives—in the compound with him. The SEALs spent 30 minutes fighting their way past most of them as the forces cleared a path through the first and second floors before finally arriving to the top floor.

There—either in a room or hallway—they found bin Laden, whose lanky frame and thin, bearded face was clearly recognizable, Pentagon officials said.

One of bin Laden’s wives even identified him by calling out his name, Time said last night on its Web site.

A SEAL who spotted him yelled, “Geronimo!”

Obama and his aides were now aware bin Laden was finally moments away from annihilation.

But like the coward he was, in his final moments, bin Laden hid behind a woman.

“There was a female who was, in fact, in the line of fire that was reportedly used as a shield to shield bin Laden from the incoming fire,” Brennan said.

“Here is bin Laden, who has been calling for these [terror] attacks [against US civilians], living in this million-dollar-plus compound hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield.”

Bin Laden—who already killed more than 3,000 Americans in the 9/11 attacks—sought to take out another one or two US soldiers.

“He was engaged in a firefight. Whether or not he got off any rounds, I don’t know,” Brennan said. Still, the SEALs did what they were trained to do. Bin Laden, his son Khalid, 24, and the female human shield were all killed.

The Saudi-born terror mastermind was felled by a “double tap,” meaning he was killed instantly by one bullet—and then had a second one pumped into him for good measure just to make sure he was dead, National Journal reported.

The kill shot ripped just above his left eye, blowing away part of his skull. The other bullet reportedly went through his chest.

“If we had the opportunity to take him alive, we would have done that,” Brennan said.

But another US security official later said, “This was a kill operation,” noting that the United States knew bin Laden would never settle for being taken alive.

In Washington, Obama got his first indication that bin Laden had been killed when a Navy SEAL sent the simple coded message saying, “Geronimo E-KIA.”

Bin Laden had been code-named for the Apache chief who had long eluded authorities and launched attacks on white settlers in the late 1880s. The “E-KIA” stood for “enemy killed in action,” ABC reported.

His lifeless body was positively identified on the scene by one of his wives—he had at least four.

But just to be sure, members of the US force measured his height and used an advanced facial recognition technology device.

DNA tests later confirmed with 99.9 percent accuracy that it the dead man, indeed, was bin Laden. One of the DNA samples came from a bin Laden sister who passed away from cancer in Boston several years ago. At the time of her death, the CIA removed part of her brain, ABC News reported.

Photos of his corpse also were transmitted to Washington as proof of his death. After getting positive confirmation, the president exclaimed, “We got him!”

Before the US team left, it removed an intelligence treasure trove of documents and computer drives that could provide invaluable information on al Qaeda’s membership, missions and strategy. Then the SEALs—taking bin Laden’s corpse—crowded into the remaining functioning helicopter and one of the two backups on hand for the short flight to an American base in Afghanistan.

Before liftoff, the SEALs destroyed the downed helicopter with explosives.

The compound survivors were later gathered up and handed over to Pakistani authorities.

In all, four people besides bin Laden were killed: two brothers, one of whom was bin Laden’s personal courier; bin Laden’s son, Khalid, and the female human shield. Two other women were wounded. There were no American casualties. The whole mission may have lasted 40 minutes. But the planning had gotten under way much earlier.

The big break in finding bin Laden occurred about four years ago, when intelligence officials uncovered the identity of bin Laden’s personal courier from a Guantanamo detainee and eventually traced bin Laden to his home.

After months of surveillance, Obama gave the final authority to nail bin Laden at 8:20 a.m. Friday during a meeting with Brennan, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, White House Chief of Staff William Daley and deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough, officials said.

He had considered bombing the hideout—but quickly ditched the idea because he wanted a body, proof of death, sources said.

The mission was supposed to go down early Saturday morning (EDT) but had to be scrubbed because of poor weather.

The next day, Sunday, around 1 p.m., the National Security team started to gather in the Situation room, and Obama arrived about an hour later. By 3:50 p.m. in Washington, Obama was given the first tentative confirmation of bin Laden’s death.

Then, at 7 p.m., he was told it was a “high probability,” and by the time the coded message came in of “Geromino’s” death, he knew the mission was accomplished.