The Four Most Surprising Revelations About Osama Bin Laden's Final Years

The Four Most Surprising Revelations About Osama Bin Laden's Final Years

By Ryan Devereaux
July 12, 2013 10:55 AM ET

Picture Osama bin Laden wearing a cowboy hat, strolling the perimeter of his walled-in Pakistani compound, contemplating whether to trim the surrounding poplar trees because spies might use them. That's just one of the mental images conjured up in a newly-revealed report on the al Qaeda leader's final years.

Here's another one: A clean-shaven bin Laden and his couriers are driving to the local bazaar with their wives and they get pulled over for speeding. They talk their way out of it, and the most wanted man in the world drives off – free to continue running errands and directing terrorism.

The leaked Pakistani report in which these events are described is a scathing body of work. It was compiled by the Abbottabad Commission, an independent group empanelled by Pakistan's parliament in 2011 to probe bin Laden's near-decade-long presence in the country and the U.S. special operations raid that ended it.



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