"This is the greatest intelligence success perhaps of a generation"

US releases seized Osama bin Laden videos

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US officials on Saturday released extraordinary videos of Osama bin Laden seized in the daring raid that killed Al-Qaeda chief, saying the material shows he was a hands-on leader who took pains to shape his public image.

The tracking of bin Laden and the May 1 raid, in which more than 20 US Navy SEALs swooped on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan and shot him dead, represented an intelligence coup on a historic scale, a senior US intelligence official said.

The Al-Qaeda leader "was far from a figurehead, he was an active player," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters at the Pentagon.

The seized material includes digital, audio and video files, printed items, computer equipment, recording devices and handwritten documents.

"As a result of the raid, we have acquired the single largest collection of senior terrorist materials ever," the official said.

"This is the greatest intelligence success perhaps of a generation," the official said.

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110508/wl_asia_afp/usattacksbinladen

were released because they knew al qaeda had copies which they would release anyway. They just wanted to get in quick.

Surely, al qaeda would have put the video of bin Laden looking like a vanity-filled doofus, watching newsreels of himself, on their next dvd release.

This is nuthin'... Move along now.

Finding, and taking, the data will be right up there with the end of bin Laden.