Osama bin Laden's hatred of West developed after visiting Shakespeare's birthplace

The terrorist wrote that he was 'not impressed' with British culture

Emily Shugerman
New York
Thursday 02 November 2017 17:05 GMT
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A videotape released by Al-Jazeera TV featuring Osama bin Laden is broadcast in Britain December 27, 2001
A videotape released by Al-Jazeera TV featuring Osama bin Laden is broadcast in Britain December 27, 2001

Osama bin Laden’s distaste for western culture grew when he visited the UK as a teenager, newly released documents have revealed.

The CIA recently released more than 470,000 files recovered from the 2011 raid on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. The files include the terrorist’s personal notebook, which confirms for the first time that he visited – and quickly grew disillusioned with – the West.

“We went every Sunday to visit Shakespeare’s house," bin Laden wrote of his travels to the UK as a teenager. "I was not impressed and I saw that they were a society different from ours and that they were a morally loose society.”

He added: “I got the impression that they were a loose people, and my age didn’t allow me to form a complete picture of life there.”

The journal may provide answers as to what radicalised the 9/11 architect in his youth. Some accounts have suggested that he harboured anti-western sentiments from as young as age 10. Others have suggested he was radicalised in the late 1970s, when he fell in with the Muslim Brotherhood.

It has long been suspected that bin Laden – the son of a billionaire Saudi construction tycoon – visited the UK, and took at least one course at Oxford. In 2001, a Spanish woman recovered photos she had taken of someone who looked strikingly like bin Laden on the Oxford campus in 1971. She described the terrorist as sounding educated, and “deep” for his age.

Bin Laden's notebook – a faded, flimsy yellow journal with “Lucky Exclusive” printed on the front – confirms that he spend 10 weeks in Britain studying as a teenager. He also claims to have visited “the west” the year before, when he was 13, to receive an unspecified "treatment”.

The journal was bought in a well-known bookshop in Pakistan, according to the Guardian. The shop is located a few hours from Abbottabad, where bin Laden spent five years with his family before his death. The journal also contains entries from his son, Khalid, who was also killed in the Navy Seal raid. It is written in Arabic, and spans more than 220 pages.

The journal is part of the largest-ever release of documents recovered from the raid that killed bin Laden. The release also includes photos, movies, and television shows found on the terrorist’s computer.

Videos recovered from the computer include the viral “Charlie Bit My Finger” clip, as well as Antz, Cars and other animated films. The CIA has declined to release the pornography that was also recovered.

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