he has had no reason to make a public declaration, so why not stay quiet and just hide. Mansoor Ijaz says we have intel that he is in iran.
He had plent of reason. He was a showboat and loved to show his face. And what better to motivate other Islamic psychos than show up an say "HA HA Im still alive. UBL would never sit out the entire Iraq war. That single event, in his mind, would have been the culmination of U.S. policy towards Islam.
Many people in Iran want the mullahs out of control and can benefit by saying UBL is in Iran, shifting U.S. focus towards there. Just like many of the Iraqi defectors spilled a whole load of B.S.