Osama bin Laden May Have Sent Coded Messages Via Porn

LOS ANGELES—A new documentary suggests that Osama bin Laden's digital porn stash may have been a means to hide and disguise encrypted messages to his followers in terror cells worldwide, according to an account by The Daily Beast. Bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks, which took place 19 years ago, as of Friday. Even though the terrorist leader was an Islamic fundamentalist who was believed to adhere rigidly to his religious practices, when he was slain in 2011, he was found to have collected a large stash of digital porn.  Peter Bergen, the documentary’s narrator and host, is the author of four books on bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and was the first journalist to meet the reclusive Saudi Arabian terrorist and conduct a televised interview with him, in 1997. His documentary, Bin Laden’s Hard Drive, is set to air on the National Geographic cable channel on Thursday, September 10.   In researching the film, Bergen combed through 470,000 files recovered from the hard drives in bin Laden’s Abbotabad hideout, including the terror leader’s porn collection. The files were contained not on a single hard drive, but on five computers, more than 100 USB drives, DVDs and CDs, as well as mobile phones.  “Exploring these hard drives, it’s clear that digital information can say a lot. Osama bin Laden’s files left behind an imprint of a complex man, responsible for the murder of thousands of people,” Bergen said of the documentary, as quoted by The New York Post. “History will remember him for that but, in order to cut through the perception of this ascetic in a cave on a holy crusade, it’s important for us to see how he crafted the videos that went out to his followers. Understanding him is vital in order to combat other potential bin Ladens in the future.” The U.S. government has made many of the files public, but has refused to release the pornography that was found on bin Laden’s various digital media.  Though Bergen theorizes that Bin Laden had an ulterior motive for amassing his large porn stash, according to the Daily Beast report, top forensic psychologist Reid Moloy also says that bin Laden may have simply used the porn the same way anybody else would — because despite his reputation as a devoutly religious Muslim, “biology trumps ideology.” Photo By Hamid Mir / Wikimedia Commons