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US releases five home videos of Osama

The United States on Saturday made public several videos seized during last week's raid, including one showing a bearded Osama bin Laden watching himself on television.

The three-storey building in Abbottabad where Osama bin Laden lived and was killed by United States forces was in fact an active command and control centre of al-Qaeda, a senior US intelligence officer said on Saturday.

Coverage: US hunts down Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden was active, in plotting terrorist strikes, issuing directives to the commanders on the ground and not just simply a strategic planner and leader of al-Qaeda, official said.

The US government today released five rare videos of bin Laden recovered from the Abbottabad compound on May 2.

Theses videos give some of the rare insight of the Al Qaeda leader.

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Videos show Osama watching himself on TV

Video 1: A complete, unreleased message to the American people. The US intelligence said it was dated some time between Oct 9 to Nov 5, 2010. Bin Laden is shown sitting down, dressed in a gold robe, his beard is dyed black and the background is blue. There is no audio but the official said bin Laden is giving his standard message of condemning US policy and capitalism.

Video 2: Bin Laden is sitting on the floor watching a television with video of his own images playing. First you see the TV screen with a menu of channels and then he selects a channel. A video of bin Laden appears on the screen. Then the camera pans over to bin Laden sitting on the floor. He has a gray beard and a black hat on, and is wrapped in a blanket. He is holding the remote control and pointing it at the television, which is sitting on a small, simple wooden table.

Videos a proof that Osama was killed in Abbottabad

The three other videos are practice sessions for videos he was planning to release to the world. The videos were released amid the Obama adminstration's decision not to release photos of the slain bin Laden and buried the terrorist leader at sea.

The videos were offered as further proof that Navy SEALs killed the world's most wanted terrorist on May 1.

The senior intelligence officer said there has been no indication so far that Pakistan government was aware of presence of bin Laden in Abbottabad compound, 80 km from Islamabad.

The US government is sharing information obtained from the materials recovered from the Abbottabad compound with other foreign countries but did not specify if India was one of them.

Describing the material obtained from the Abbottabad compound and the treasure-trove of terrorist material, the official said it will take some time for the US to scan through all the information.

The Central Intelligence Agency has set up a task force with officials from other US government agencies in this regard. Most the information from these materials would however remain classified.