Osama's mysterious cash stash

Osama bin Laden hated everything American, including, it would seem, its currency.

British and American media reported yesterday that the slain al-Qaeda leader had E500 (R4 900) hidden in his clothing when US Navy Seals attacked his compound and killed him.

According to the US website Politico, CIA director Leon Panetta has told congressmen that Bin Laden had the currency sewn into his clothing, and two telephone numbers to call in an emergency.

To the Daily Telegraph's executive foreign editor, Con Coughlin, this information was intriguing on a number of levels.

"Does this mean, for example, that for the five or six years that bin Laden resided at his million-dollar residence he lived in continual fear of being apprehended, and therefore made sure he had an emergency stash on him to help him escape?" Coughlin wrote.

"Did he wear the same clothes day in, day out, or were E500 stashed into the lining of all his garments? And why euros rather than dollars, which is the favoured cash currency in the region?

"Whenever I've visited Pakistan I've always taken care to have dollars on hand if I run out of local currency. And when you are travelling in the provinces, hotels and restaurants are happy to receive dollars. But offer to settle the bill in euros and you get some quizzical looks. The same applies across the border in Afghanistan.

"So why did Bin Laden have euros, not dollars, sewn into his garments? One explanation would be that, such was the level of his hatred for the US, he could not bear the thought of using American currency. Then again, his preference for euros over the dollar may simply be down to the fact that, at heart, Bin Laden was a closet europhile."

American television network ABC News also reported on the cash stitched in his clothing.

It said intelligence officials were analysing 10 cellphones, 10 computers and 100 flash drives that were probably used by the two couriers living with Bin Laden.

Officials were going through each computer running keyword searches using words like "explosives" or "weddings".

Weddings is a word often used by al-Qaeda to signify a bombing. They were also tracing the phone numbers found, ABC reported.

While intelligence officials continue analysing this mother lode of information, President Barack Obama has decided not to release photographs taken of Bin Laden after his death, according to an interview with CBS's television's 60 Minutes to be broadcast on Sunday.

ABC News has reported that Defence Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have advised Obama that releasing a picture could prompt a backlash against the US.

After monitoring Arab and Muslim media, Obama and some of his national security team did not believe that there were many sceptics in the Muslim world who doubted Bin Laden's death.

This apparent lack of scepticism, coupled with the fact that Bin Laden's wife, Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, had identified Bin Laden to the Navy Seals and Pakistani intelligence officials, had made Obama increasingly doubtful there was a compelling reason to release a photograph.

ABC news reported that the White House possessed a number of photographs of Bin Laden's corpse, taken in Pakistan, Afghanistan and on the aircraft carrier USS Carl S. Vinson.

Officials who saw the photographs said Bin Laden had a gunshot wound in his forehead that exposed the inside of his head.

A person who was shown some of the images told ABC News they looked like pictures from "a bad crime scene".