A 2011 message released by the U.S. intelligence community in a batch last May from bin Laden to his wife Khairah asked her about dental work she received while under house arrest in Iran, appearing paranoid in his questioning about possible micro bugging or tracking devices being installed unknowingly in her teeth using a syringe. Bin Laden repeatedly stated he wanted her to join him but he worried she could be tailed.

Several newly declassified letters appear to include follow-up correspondence with his wife, in which he explains to her that he and his men “horribly fear the filling you were given,” because computer chips used to track people can be planted “under the skin.”

“I ask you to report to me in detail anything you find suspicious from any doctor in Iran, like if the syringe is the usual volume and its head has a slightly larger diameter than normal,” bin Laden wrote in the January 2011 letter.

Another dated only three months before SEAL Team Six operators shot the al Qaeda leader Abbottabad continued to ask his wife about her medical procedures, suggesting she get an x-ray or ultrasound to see if any tracking devices had been placed inside her body. He apologized for quizzing her, begging her to “please excuse me if I have worn you out with some of these details.”