Report: Osama bin Laden -- doting grandpa, paranoid terrorist

Osama
bin Laden typically wore a cowboy hat
while tending his garden.
Its broad brim obscured his features
from the view of pesky eyes or satellite
cameras that might blow his cover
while he was hiding out in Pakistan,
according to a report first published
widely in Pakistani media.
The 337-page leaked report details the
domestic life of one of the world's
most wanted men in his final days of
life.
It also bashes Pakistani authorities for
failing to keep the al Qaeda leader out
of the country, and for failing to
prevent the U.S. raid by Navy SEALs
that killed him in May 2011.
The report bears the names of a
former top diplomat, a supreme
court justice and former officers of
the military and police.
A senior government
official who was closely
associated with the
commission that
produced the report
confirmed its authenticity
to CNN. Citing a news
piece by Al Jazeera, the
first to report the story,
the official said the
documents being
discussed in the news are
part of a report that was
submitted to the prime
minister's office.
The famous terrorist's life
was speckled with quirky
measures designed to
keep him under the radar,
the report said.
Al Qaeda's No. 1 spent
lots of time doting on his
some dozen children and
grandchildren in the six
years he spent in his
walled compound in the
city of Abbottabad, said
terror expert Peter
Bergen, commenting on
the report.
They could not pass time watching TV
or surfing online, because bin Laden
had no Internet connection and no
satellite television hook-up. He also
didn't have a phone line, all measures
to avoid detection.
For the same reason, the children
were not allowed to play with other
kids in the neighborhood. They spent
the bulk of their lives within the
compound's walls.
When bin Laden was not personally
giving them religious instruction, he
took them out into the yard.
He would award them prizes if they
grew particularly good vegetables in
the garden.
Bin Laden fled to Pakistan a month
after the September 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks on the United States, moving
from the south to the north and then
hopping from town to town before
landing in Abbottabad in 2005.
While he was on the run, one of his
wives gave birth four times and had to
be taken to local hospitals, but it was
obvious that she was not from the
region. She spoke Arabic instead of
Urdu, Pakistan's official language.
Bin Laden's family feared this might
raise suspicions. So, they told doctors
she was deaf and mute.
While on the run in the restive tribal
region of the Swat Valley, bin Laden
shaved off his recognizable beard,
according to the report. Men helping
him told others not to ask any
questions about the tall stranger, who
spoke Arabic.
While in Swat, police once
pulled bin Laden's driver
over, but he quickly
settled the matter before
the officer had a chance
to get a closer look at the
clean-shaven man riding
with him.
After arriving in
Abbottabad, a woman
living in the same building
with bin Laden recognized
him from his image
shown on cable TV. Her
husband, who was
helping bin Laden, went
into a panic, the report
said.
He told her to mind her
own business and
forbade her and all other
women in the house from
watching TV anymore.
Opinion: Who really killed
bin Laden?
The assassination raid
The measures kept bin
Laden from being
recognized for years in a
city also home to one of
Pakistan's largest military
complexes.
The CIA eventually suspected he was
there and recruited a Pakistani doctor
to run a vaccination program in
Abbottabad in an attempt to find bin
Laden by locating his children through
their DNA.
Eventually the United States did find
the al Qaeda leader and assassinated
him during a special forces raid on his
compound. He was later buried at
sea, the U.S. military said.
Although the SEALs were within
Pakistan's borders for three hours, its
military did not detect them.
"The radar systems were not looking
for that kind of intrusion from the
Afghan side of the border," terror
expert Peter Bergen said. He feels
sure that will change now.
The report also dedicated 22 pages to
fighting terrorism and keeping people
like bin Laden from taking refuge in
the country again.
The report's authors blast Pakistani
authorities at every level of
government, intelligence and the
military for not stopping the U.S.
mission, calling it "a story of
complacency, ignorance, negligence,
incompetence, irresponsibility, and
possibly worse at various levels inside
and outside the government."
Pakistan's government considers the
assassination operation a violation of
its sovereignty, basically an act of war.