He’s arguably the most recognizable terrorist in history — mythologized among his devout followers, portrayed on screen as penultimate evil — and now Osama bin Laden is the subject of a new exhibit at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.
The chilling exhibit, “Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden,” centers on the decade-long search for and seizure of the al Qaeda mastermind who was responsible for the deaths of 2,977 people on 9/11 — and the thousands more lost through bloody wars and debilitating illness.
Exhibit items fill in fascinating missing pieces of a mystery that has captured the public’s imagination for some 18 years.
“This is the first time any of the objects from the bin Laden compound have ever been seen in public,” Clifford Chanin, the executive vice president and deputy director for museum programs at the 9/11 Museum, told Insider.
Visitors can see 60 artifacts and replicas that have been declassified by the FBI and CIA — all providing a harrowing frame for the relentless US manhunt for bin Laden.
The exhibit, which is in previews now and opens to the public Nov. 15, features a suicide manual given to bin Laden followers and handcuffs that belonged to fallen Port Authority police officer Donald James McIntyre, who was killed on 9/11.
A re-created fingerprint card reveals how the FBI confirmed the identity of bin Laden, who was ultimately captured and killed by Navy SEAL Team Six in a surprise May 2011 raid on the terrorist’s hidden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
CIA Director Leon Panetta’s handwritten memo dated April 29, 2011 (after President Obama signed off on the raid), is also included.
Also on display is the detailed 4-foot by 4-foot-square model of the compound that the military used to study for months to fashion the raid; the model was brought to the White House to brief President Obama.
The exhibit is on display at the museum located at 180 Greenwich St. in lower Manhattan. Entrance to the museum is between $ 15 and $ 26 and can be reserved online.