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Slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden often wore an American cowboy hat to avoid detection from the United States while hiding in his Pakistan, reveals leaked details from the Abbottabad commision report, set up by the Pakistan govt.
Laden believed that the dress code helped him avoid being spotted by US drones strikes.
Laden is also said to like eating apples and chocolates to energise himself when he was feeling weak, and encouraged his grandchildren to compete over who could tend the best vegetable patch.
Bin Laden is said to have entered Pakistan in mid-2002 after nearly being captured in the battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan. Over nine years, he moved to various places inside the country, including South Waziristan and northern Swat Valley.
In Swat, the al-Qaeda leader reportedly met with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, in early 2003. About a month later,Mohammad was captured in Rawalpindi in a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation, and bin Laden fled the area.
Bin Laden, along with two of his wives and several children and grandchildren, moved into the custom-built compound in Abbottabad, a military garrison town, in 2005 and lived there until the U.S. raid
Bin Laden was very concerned about surveillance. The report says bin laden considered buying and cutting down a row of poplar trees on the perimeter of the Abbottabad compound because he thought it might provide cover for observers.
The document also reveals that the hunt for Osama might have ended 8 years earlier, if the Pakistani traffic policeman had spotted him in his car that was stopped for speeding in Swat. But the policeman failed to spot the clean shaven Bin laden and he was allowed to pass.
Laden is also said to have taken great care to keep his wives and grandkids hidden from public view. Young girls in the Obama household observed purdah very strictly, as early as from the age of 3 and even while watching men shown on TV.
