Videos show Osama bin Laden's secret life 

5 clips of terrorist leader portray him as someone obsessed with his own image 

The five U.S. government-selected clips offer the first public glimpse at bin Laden's life behind the walls of his compound in suburban Pakistan. The videos include outtakes of his propaganda films and, taken together, portray him as someone obsessed with his own image and how he is portrayed to the world.

A senior intelligence officer described the information seized from the compound as "the single largest collection" of senior terrorist material ever, NBC News reported. The videos were seized by Navy SEALs after bin Laden was killed Monday.

"The treasure trove of information has provided some golden nuggets of information on communications within the al-Qaida group and we hope to get a better sense if that communication continues," the senior official told NBC News. "We are already disseminating intelligence across the U.S. government based on what we've found."

A task force is working around the clock to analyze all of the information from the compound, and is drawing from the expertise from at least 10 federal agencies. 

"Bin Laden remained an active leader in al-Qaida, providing strategic, operational, and tactical instructions to the group," the senior official said, adding "He was not just a strategic thinker for the group, he was active in operational planning and in driving tactical decisions inside al-Qaida."

Officials said they removed audio from the clips because they believed it was "inappropriate" to spread the word of a terrorist, NBC News reported. Video highlights from NBC: 

Video 1: A complete, unreleased message to the American people. U.S. intelligence said it was dated some time between Oct. 9 to Nov. 5, 2010. Bin Laden is shown sitting down, dressed in a gold robe, his beard is dyed black and the background is blue. There is no audio but the official said bin Laden is giving his standard message of condemning U.S. policy and capitalism. 

Video 2: Bin Laden is sitting on the floor watching a television with video of his own images playing. A video of bin Laden appears on the screen. Then the camera pans over to bin Laden sitting on the floor. He has a gray beard and a black hat on, and is wrapped in a blanket. He is holding the remote control and pointing it at the television, which is sitting on a small, simple wooden table. 

Video 3: A practice video. He has a dyed black beard and a wooden background, which was described as an armoire. The official said they have concluded that the armoire in the video is the same one that was found on the compound. There is no date on the video.

Video 4: Another practice clip. He has a brown background and is wearing a white shirt with a T-shirt underneath. There is no date on this video.

Video 5: Another practice video. He is in front of a wrinkled sheet, wearing a gold covering or robe and white shirt. He is wearing a white hat and his beard is dyed black. There is no date on this video.

The senior official told NBC News that bin Laden had a gray beard when he was killed during the raid and seemed to have dyed his beard black for videos.

Video: Interrogators focused on one of bin Laden's wives

"This mission goes to the heart of what the CIA is all about: protecting America and building a better world for our children," CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a written statement. "The material found in the compound only further confirms how important it was to go after bin Laden. Since 9/11, this is what the American people have expected of us. In this critical operation, we delivered." 

Is Zawahiri the successor? 
 
The death of bin Laden appears to have created a power vacuum at the top of al-Qaida, a senior U.S. intelligence official said Saturday.

The official told reporters that it was noteworthy that al-Qaida, even while acknowledging the death of bin Laden on Friday, did not name a successor. While the group's longtime number two, Ayman Zawahiri, might be considered his "presumed successor," the Egyptian born al-Qaida deputy is "not popular" among some members of the terror group and it is considered an "open question" as to who will succeed bin Laden, the official said.

If al-Qaida held "free and fair elections, Zawahiri would have a fight on his hands," the senior official said.

When asked by a reporter to explain the unpopularity of Zawahiri, the official responded, "He's extremely controlling, he's a micromanager, and he's not especially charismatic."

The official's comments seemed part of a broader U.S. government strategy aimed at diminishing both bin Laden and his longtime number two in the eyes of the Islamic world. The statements are in line with the U.S. release of video showing bin Laden dying his grey beard, and huddling before a TV set with a remote control watching TV footage of himself.

Zawahiri is a physician who once headed a militant group known as Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which he merged with al-Qaida in 1996. He has long served as al-Qaida's de facto ideological leader, writing two books and producing a stream of videos and audio speeches calling on devout Muslims to join forces to attack the infidels of the West. But his whereabouts remain unknown.

The official offered no details about the degree to which bin Laden had been communicating with Zawahiri and other well-known figures in al-Qaida, such as Anwar Al-Awlaki, the American born propagandist in Yemen who has also been mentioned as a possible successor to bin Laden.

In Pakistan for 7 years? 
 
Meanwhile on Saturday senior Pakistani security officials said bin Laden may have lived in Pakistan for over seven years before being shot dead by U.S. forces, a disclosure that could further anger key ally Washington over the presence of enemy number one in the country.

One of bin Laden's widows, Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, told investigators earlier that bin Laden and his family had spent five years in Abbottabad, before one of the world's most elaborate and expensive manhunts ended there on Monday.

"Amal (bin Laden's wife) told investigators that they lived in a village in Haripur district for nearly two and a half years before moving to Abbottabad at the end of 2005," one of the security officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity. 

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