U.S. Says It Recovered Porn Collection From Osama Compound

An extensive collection of digital pornography was found inside Osama Bin Laden’s Pakistani compound, current and former U.S. officials told Reuters Friday.

The pornography was found among the thumb drives and other electronics recovered by U.S. soldiers who carried out the raid, the news agency reported, and consists of “modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive.”

The officials stressed that they do not know if the pornography belonged to Bin Laden, but that fact is likely to be lost in the shuffle for a story that lends so well to Twitter jokes and email forwards.

It is unclear whether the on-background leak comes with the blessing of the White House but, regardless, it becomes the latest in a string of Bin Laden details provided by the administration that undercuts the al-Qaida leader’s image abroad.

The news is far less damning than some of the fictional details that the White House initially circulated in the wake of Bin Laden’s death. Namely, that one of his wives was killed while he attempted to use her as cover from oncoming Navy SEALs. (The White House has since recanted that story, among others.)

Nor does it come with the visual power of the edited videos the U.S. released last weekend showing Bin Laden checking himself out on TV.

But the report of pornography isn’t going to make it any easier for Bin Laden sympathizers who want to remember the man as a warrior who was fighting the U.S. to the bitter end.