Much sport has been made of reports that Osama bin Laden, the terror mastermind and hater of all things American, would, in the years before his death, strut around Abbottabad, Pakistan, in a cowboy hat. (The Daily Mail even Photoshopped a Stetson onto the late al Qaeda chief’s mug.)

But to those familiar with his biography, the sartorial statement is not so surprising: According to numerous biographies, bin Laden was a huge fan of westerns in his youth, a fancier of horses and an aspiring cowboy.

His favorite TV shows were “Bonanza” and “Fury,” according to Steve Coll’s biography, “The Bin Ladens.” He learned to ride horses on his late father’s ranch in Jedda, which served as “Little O’s” own personal Ponderosa.

“ Bin Laden was a huge fan of westerns in his youth, a fancier of horses and an aspiring cowboy. ”

“He liked western movies. One of the series he liked was ‘Fury,’ ” Khaled Bartafi, bin Laden’s childhood friend and neighbor, told Peter Bergen in “The Osama bin Laden I Know.” Bartafi, who described bin Laden as a shy and peaceful boy, said the man responsible for countless deaths then preferred TV violence to the actual kind.

“Fury,” which aired on NBC from 1955 to 1960 and was syndicated across the world, concerned an orphan boy named Joey, who comes to live on the Broken Wheel Ranch with a man who’s lost his wife and son in a car accident. There Joey also befriends a wild black stallion named Fury. “Through this relationship, the wounds of Joey’s early life are gradually healed,” Coll writes. “The sources of appeal in this narrative are not difficult to imagine; in any event, as [bin Laden] grew up, he became passionate about horses.”

Old West–style “wanted” poster hangs in Manhattan shortly after the terror attack that felled the World Trade Center. Reuters

In a few short years, bin Laden would begin his journey from the banality of TV westerns to the epitome of evil. But judging from his hat choice, perhaps the westerns retained some appeal, even after bin Laden was swayed by radical Islam and disavowed all American culture. Did bin Laden still like westerns? Would he have been among the few people excited to see “The Lone Ranger” reboot?

The same questions that fascinated Hannah Arendt in her portrait of Adolf Eichmann seem to apply here.

It’s hard to fathom the ordinariness of bin Laden’s beginnings, and, based on accounts of his humdrum final days cooped up in the Abbottabad compound, his ending. It certainly isn’t the stuff of Hollywood westerns.

And, hat or no hat, he certainly wasn’t a cowboy.

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• Bin Laden ordered killing of Obama: Washington Post