A journal made public by the CIA and apparently handwritten by one of Osama bin Laden's daughters offers a glimpse into how the late al-Qaeda leader viewed the world around him.
It also revealed his deep interest in the 2011 Arab Spring revolutions that were unfolding in the months before a US raid killed him.
He discusses Libya becoming a pathway for jihadists to Europe, of his time as a young teen visiting William Shakespeare's home in Britain and how quickly turmoil had gripped the Middle East.
The 228-page journal meanders between discussions, thoughts and reflections bin Laden shared with his family about how to exploit the uprisings, what to make of the rapid changes unfolding in the Arab world and when al-Qaeda should speak out.
The Associated Press examined a copy of the journal uploaded by the Long War Journal to its website.
The CIA released it on Wednesday as part of a trove of material recovered during the May 2011 raid that killed bin Laden and then took down the files - saying they were "temporarily unavailable pending resolution of a technical issue".
The journal appears to cover conversations between bin Laden, daughters Miriam and Somiya, his wife, and sons Khaled and Hamza - the latter of whom would go on to become a potential successor to lead the group his father founded.
The journal is titled, 'Special diaries for Abu Abdullah: Sheikh Abdullah's points of view - A session with the family', which refers to bin Laden by his traditional Arabic name.
The conversations took place between February and April 2011, with the journal entries dated according to the Islamic calendar.
Other items released by the CIA include bin Laden’s handwritten diary and a wedding video that includes the first public look at his son, Hamza, as an adult.
Previous document releases, including letters revealed by AFP in May 2015, show that bin Laden was grooming Hamza to succeed him as leader of al-Qaeda's global jihadist campaign.
But plans for him to come to bin Laden's Abbottabad hideout seem to have been abandoned after the deadly US raid and the young man, now aged 27 or 28, is presumed to be in Iran.
Hamza bin Laden is seen as an adult at his wedding. Source: AAP
The CIA put online 470,000 additional files seized in May 2011 when US Navy SEALs burst into the Abbottabad compound and shot dead the leader of al-Qaeda's global extremist network.
CIA director Mike Pompeo said the release "provides the opportunity for the American people to gain further insights into the plans and workings of this terrorist organisation".
According to Thomas Joscelyn and Bill Roggio, scholars from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who were allowed to study the trove before it was made public, it provides new insights.
"These documents will go a long way to help fill in some of the blanks we still have about al Qaeda's leadership," Mr Roggio said.
