The United States’ Central Intelligence Agency released a fourth batch of files that were seized during the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, revealing details about the al Qaeda leader in his hideout in Pakistan’s Abbottabad.
Nearly 4,70,000 files are available at the agency’s website, while the earlier releases are available here. The material contains 17,000 documents, 79,000 audio and image files and 10,000 video files, the agency said in a statement.
While a lot of it were practice reels for public speeches and jihadist propaganda, the files also included several children’s cartoons such as Tom and Jerry and Mr Bean, Hollywood movies, memes, GIFs, documentaries about himself, and even crocheting videos.
“Today’s release of recovered al Qaeda letters, videos, audio files and other materials provides the opportunity for the American people to gain further insights into the plans and workings of this terrorist organisation,” said Central Intelligence Agency Director Mike Pompeo. “CIA will continue to seek opportunities to share information with the American people consistent with our obligation to protect national security.”
However, there still is a lot of material that has not yet been released from the Abbottabad collection. It “includes materials that are sensitive such that their release would directly damage efforts to keep the nation secure; materials protected by copyright; pornography; malware; and blank, corrupted and duplicate files”.
Some of the material that has been withheld include movies such as Antz, Cars, games including “Final Fantasy VII”, and documentaries about him like Where in the World is Osama bin Laden.
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