RECLUSE

Bin Laden's Secret Life in Pakistan

Terrorist consumed in boredom and plotting anarchy.

Videos released by the Obama administration on Saturday and other intelligence gathered since the raid have provided some details of Osama bin Laden's life inside his barbed wire compound in Abbottabad. U.S. officials believe the terrorist spent many hours on the computer, updating information from the outside world as it was delivered to him by couriers. The videos show the terrorist doing very little besides fumbling around at his computer and practicing to release a statement condemning the U.S., for which he dyed his white beard black. Other than that, evidence suggests his day-to-day life was that of a domestic hermit, whose Arab entourage had dwindled to one trusted Pakistani courier and the courier's brother, who brought him and his family food from the town grocer. Bin Laden himself never did chores or tended to the land outside of the compound, and his couriers accepted that he was too busy carrying out Al Qaeda's terrorist mission. U.S. officials say there is much that they don't know about the last years of bin Laden's life, but what they do know shows a man in isolation, most likely bored but nonetheless consumed in plotting anarchy and violence. One of his sons said in a 2009 email message that his father would not like being isolated indoors for years, but if he was forced to do so, "he would go inward and occupy himself with his mind."