Was Bin Laden a Fan of Video Games?

A boy plays with a tennis ball in front of Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. The house was later demolished. (File photo: Reuters)
A boy plays with a tennis ball in front of Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. The house was later demolished. (File photo: Reuters)
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Was Bin Laden a Fan of Video Games?

A boy plays with a tennis ball in front of Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. The house was later demolished. (File photo: Reuters)
A boy plays with a tennis ball in front of Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. The house was later demolished. (File photo: Reuters)

Slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was apparently a fan of video games and cartoons, Britain’s The Daily Mail has reported.

Bin Laden played a number of popular games, including Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Super Mario Bros., Final Fantasy VII and Dragon Ball Z, the newspaper said.

The revelation was discovered in a large batch of files and documents recovered from his computer after US forces killed him in a raid on his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan in May 2011.

The documents were released on Wednesday by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The CIA documents also showed that bin Laden was a fan of cute viral videos on YouTube. One video that al-Qaeda’s leader liked to watch is the famous ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ clip from 2007.

Bin Laden also had the Biography channel's film about himself along with 'CNN Presents: World's Most Wanted.'

The latter film debuted in 2006 and featured the world's top three most-wanted terrorists: bin Laden, his No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, and al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

But the more bizarre files are Tom and Jerry cartoons and various children's films - including Ice Age and Chicken Little.



Fighter Jet Goes Overboard from USS Harry S. Truman

Aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman is moored near Split, Croatia, Feb. 14, 2022. (AP)
Aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman is moored near Split, Croatia, Feb. 14, 2022. (AP)
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Fighter Jet Goes Overboard from USS Harry S. Truman

Aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman is moored near Split, Croatia, Feb. 14, 2022. (AP)
Aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman is moored near Split, Croatia, Feb. 14, 2022. (AP)

An F/A-18 fighter jet landing on the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in the Red Sea went overboard, forcing its two pilots to eject, a defense official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The incident Tuesday marks the latest mishap to mar the deployment of the Truman, which has been essential in the airstrike campaign by the United States against Yemen's Houthi militias.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump and Oman's foreign minister both said that a ceasefire had been reached with the Houthis, who would no longer target ships in the Red Sea corridor.

The F/A-18 Super Hornet landed on the Truman after a flight, but "the arrestment failed," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about the incident now under investigation.

"Arrestment" refers to the hook system used by aircraft landing on carriers, which catches steel wire ropes on the flight deck. It remains unclear what part of the system failed.

The two pilots on board were later rescued by a helicopter and suffered minor injuries in the incident, the official added. No one on the flight deck was hurt.

CNN first reported on the incident.

Tuesday's incident was the latest to see the Navy lose an F/A-18, which cost about $60 million. In April, another F/A-18 fighter jet slipped off the hangar deck of the Truman and fell into the Red Sea. The crew members who were in the pilot seat of the Super Hornet and on the small towing tractor both jumped away.

In December, the guided-missile cruiser USS Gettysburg mistakenly shot down an F/A-18 after ships earlier shot down multiple Houthi drones and an anti-ship cruise missile launched by the militants. Both aviators in that incident also survived.

And in February, the Truman collided with a merchant vessel near Port Said, Egypt.

The Truman, based out of Norfolk, Virginia, has seen its deployment extended multiple times amid the Houthi airstrike campaign. It had been joined recently by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier operating out of the Arabian Sea.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on the social platform X that an investigation was underway and that "this aircraft was not struck by the Houthis."

"The Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group remains fully mission-capable," he added.