NEW YORK, March 14 (UPI) -- A new set of photos offer a rare glimpse of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden in and around a hideout in remote mountainous region of Afghanistan known as Tora Bora. The photographs became public this week as part of a federal terrorism trial in Manhattan.
The pictures reveal the now infamous terrorist before he had captured the attention and ire of the world as chief orchestrator of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks. They show Bin Laden living a spartan, wary life, surrounded by Islamic texts and armed bodyguards, often holding a Kalashnikov, which he claimed had been taken from a Soviet general who was killed during the nine-year Soviet war in Afghanistan.