News of Osama’s crippling paranoia is an easy conclusion to make when you consider he was living in a secluded compound at the end of a long dirt road with no internet or phone connection. But, sometimes confirmation feels good. Kinda like how I know I’m a goddamn sexual god, but it always brings me a sense of joy to hear the droves of women say it. Ok, maybe just one. Nonetheless, it makes it real.
A series of documents seized from Bin Laden’s compound dated primarily between 2009 and 2011 indicate that the Al Qaeda leader became increasingly worried about spies, drones, and secret tracking devices.
He urged his stable of terrorists not to leave their house in the Pakistani city of Peshawar ‘except on a cloudy overcast day’ to avoid being picked up by drones. Bin Laden even went so far as to execute four would-be volunteers on suspicion of spying, even though they later found that they were likely innocent.
According to Reuters,
“I did not mention this to justify what has happened,” wrote the undated letter’s unidentified author, adding, “we are in an intelligence battle and humans are humans and no one is infallible.”
In other words, ‘sorry, not sorry.’
In another document, bin Laden warns al Qaeda members holding an Afghan hostage to be mindful of possible tracking devices attached to a ransom payment.
In a letter he writes: “It is important to get rid of the suitcase in which the funds are delivered, due to the possibility of it having a tracking chip in it.”
Maybe the most telling anecdote of Osama feeling the walls of ‘Merica closing in was his extreme caution before his wife visited the dentist.
In another, bin Laden, writing under the pseudonym Abu Abdallah, expresses alarm over his wife’s visit to a dentist while in Iran, worrying that a tracking chip could have been implanted with her dental filling.
“The size of the chip is about the length of a grain of wheat and the width of a fine piece of vermicelli,” he wrote.
The documents also claim that Bin Laden was planning a media campaign to capitalize on the tenth anniversary of September 11th. Which, by the way, never came to fruition because we capped his ass on May 2, 2011.
[h/t Reuters]