Osama Bin Laden Porn Stash? Pornography Discovered At Compound: Report

A stash of pornography was found in the hideout of Osama bin Laden by the U.S. commandos who killed him, current and former U.S. officials said on Friday.

The pornography recovered in bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive, according to the officials, who discussed the discovery with Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The officials said they were not yet sure precisely where in the compound the pornography was discovered or who had been viewing it. Specifically, the officials said they did not know if bin Laden himself had acquired or viewed the materials.

Reports from Abbottabad have said that bin Laden's compound was cut off from the Internet or other hard-wired communications networks. It is unclear how compound residents would have acquired the pornography.

But a video released by the Obama administration confiscated from the compound showed bin Laden watching pictures of himself on a TV screen, indicating that the compound was equipped with video playback equipment.

Materials carted away from the compound by the U.S. commandos included digital thumb drives, which U.S. officials believe may have been a principal means by which couriers carried electronic messages to and from the late al Qaeda leader.

Three other U.S. officials familiar with evidence gathered during investigations of other Islamic militants said the discovery of pornography is not uncommon in such cases.

(Reporting by Mark Hosenball and Tabassum Zakaria; editing by Warren Strobel)

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

Comments

[dbrett480]

08:13 PM on 06/26/2011

Of course there was pornography. What else is there to do on an isolated compound in Pakistan?

[jayes]

04:16 AM on 06/01/2011

i guess if i were muslim i'd think three times over about choosing my leaders. wait... i guess i should do that anyway (this just seems like an extreme case).

[Kim Lockhart]

07:50 PM on 05/19/2011

Slate had a good piece on this which talked about how polls show that 17 percent of French Muslims believe deliberate attacks on civilians could be justified, but only 16 percent of French Muslims agreed that pornography was justified. The trend was similar in Muslim populations in other parts of Western Europe. Sad that violence in these populations would be seen as more acceptable than sex. Though many of us have noticed a similar trend in social conservatives in the US as well. (Though I should mention that to their credit a smaller % of them view violence targeting civilians as acceptable)

[vacavillebud]

03:44 PM on 05/17/2011

After living in Libya for a couple of years during the sixties I became acutely aware of the dual standard of living the so called religious Islamic men have there. Pornography is big business there and Osama is no different than most of those men over there. I am buoyed by their recent moves toward equality and I hope it extends to those wonderful women who have so long suffered the pain and torture of inequality.

[WindySailor]

03:23 PM on 05/17/2011

Now I know who stole my laptop.

[Bo Van Lee]

11:43 AM on 05/17/2011

It's OK. The lesbians had their faces covered.

[jsccbaker]

11:38 AM on 05/17/2011

Titles included : "Camels and toes", and "The Haram Harem"

[OhCaptain]

09:33 AM on 05/17/2011

I remember reading somewhere that religious fundamentalists are the largest consumer group for porn in this country.

::waves at the hypocrisy::

[kencrn419]

07:31 PM on 05/16/2011

I hear he had the entire 'Goats Gone Wild' collection.

Even the director's cut of 'Dolly Does Dubai.'

[Lovenox]

11:44 AM on 05/17/2011

Not to mention "I.E.D. : Improvised Erection Device Part IV" and "Deep Goat Part V"

[jnovo79]

02:10 PM on 05/17/2011

The Infidel in Ms. Jones

[ZoeT]

07:15 PM on 05/16/2011

To start a jihad which ends up destroying hundreds of thousands of people and have it be all right because those "people" aren't really humans, but objects, is obscene.

To watch porn that ends up destroying the values we would never want to defend in front of God and have it be all right because those "women" aren't really humans, but objects, is obscene.

Any pots out there trying to call the kettles black?

[Azuki]

04:32 PM on 05/17/2011

You're not really comparing porn to mass murder, right?

[ZoeT]

06:54 PM on 05/17/2011

I am only pointing out some things along a continuum. There are greater and lesser evils, but sometimes they pertain to the same condition, in this case, obsenities. As for death and porn, there is a reason why so many porn stars OD and/or commit suicide. They prefer death to the life they are living.

[Sigg]

03:23 PM on 05/16/2011

This kind of sensationalized reporting is exactly what feeds into the minds of "the other side". Using pornography is personal and has absolutely nothing to do with terrorism or the bin Ladin story. Keep to the revelant facts, please.

[j0shxx]

05:27 PM on 05/16/2011

I disagree, he was supposed to be a radical muslin role model, these people cover their own women up with Burkas what gives them the right to look at porn ? Ah maybe porn with Burkas you idiot.

[Abdul-Halim Vazquez]

10:10 AM on 05/20/2011

I remember hearing about one Islamist group which made the extremely literalist argument that looking at a picture of a naked women is significantly distinct from directly looking at a naked woman.

[anthonyNtx]

03:18 PM on 05/16/2011

It's the Islamic leaders that want their people to live by the book and die by the book. While the leaders enjoy the sins of the west. He wasn't living a hard life in the mountains. He was having sexual relations with his wives. Probaly with the financial help from his family.

[Captain Kyrie Val Kyrie]

02:03 PM on 05/16/2011

Isn't porn 'decadent', and wasn't Bin Laden supposed to be anti-decadence ? I'd say Osama was a typical conservative; mostly false front terrorist.

[LIbislife]

01:48 PM on 05/16/2011

too funny! guess he coundn't wait for the 71 virgins.

[ZoeT]

07:07 PM on 05/16/2011

72. Every woman counts.

[Watching rock grow]

01:15 PM on 05/16/2011

It is a perversion of Islam that women are to be covered up head to toe except when in the company of closely related males. When the jihadists look at pornography I believe they are using it to focus their anger at what they believe is a Western concept that is being forced upon good Islamic women.

[Bo Van Lee]

11:50 AM on 05/17/2011

It certainly got their "missiles" pointing in the right direction