Osama Bin Laden reportedly had this paranoiac fear of Americans using advanced surveillance technology to track him that he wrote to his Saudi wife in Iran then that she should avoid taking her belongings for fear the enemy may inject a microscopic bug into her clothes, according to Malaysian Insider.
This was made known in the letters written by Osama to his wife that was declassified by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to the AFP.
Osama had completely avoided all electronic communications and his letters were all handwritten. He was killed by US Commandos when his secret hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan was raided. It was believed that the CIA managed to track him at his secret hideout by following the couriers of the letters he usually exchanged with his henchmen.
“Before Um Hamza arrives here, it is necessary for her to leave everything behind, including clothes, books, everything that she had in Iran… Everything that a needle might possibly penetrate,” Bin Laden wrote, in a letter dated September 26, 2010
“Some chips have been lately developed for eavesdropping, so small they could easily be hidden inside a syringe,” he said, according to the CIA’s own translation.
“Since the Iranians are not to be trusted, it is possible to implant a chip in some of the belongings that you might have brought along with you.”
His wife, Khairiah Sabar is the mother of Osama’s favorite son and was one of the three wives in the secret hideout at the time of the American raid.
The letters also revealed his paranoia for modern communications such as e-mail, telephones or any other electronic devices such as cell phones and SIM cards. He regularly cautioned his henchmen against using any modern form of communications.
“Concerning using the Internet for correspondence, it is OK for general messages, but the secrecy of the mujahideen does not allow its usage, and couriers are the only way,” he wrote.
Other letters describe his pathological fear of American technology extending to modern medicine, cautioning his henchmen to avoid seeking medical treatments from doctors and dentists.
“Our security situation here does not allow us to go to doctors, so please take care of all your medical needs, particularly your teeth, and keep the prescriptions from every doctor you go to, so we can get the medication when you come to us,” he wrote.
