Monday, 02 May 2011 | Jumada I 29, 1432 | Last updated at 15:10
Bin Laden died in house close to Pakistan's military academy
Surrounded in red fabric, a compound is seen where locals reported a firefight
took place overnight in Abbotabad, located in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
province, on Monday. (Reuters)
By NAHAL TOOSI & ZARAR KHAN | AP
Published: May 2, 2011 08:27 Updated: May 2, 2011 12:34
ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan: Four helicopters swooped in early Monday and killed Osama
Bin Laden in a fiery American raid on his fortress-like compound in a Pakistani
town that is home to three army regiments. His location raised pointed
questions over whether Pakistani authorities knew the whereabouts of the
world's most wanted man.
The Al-Qaeda chief was living in a house in the town of Abbottabad that a US
official said was "custom built to hide someone of significance." Abbottabad is
around 60 miles from the capital Islamabad, far from the remote mountain caves
along the Pakistan-Afghanistan tribal border where most intelligence
assessments had put Bin Laden in recent years.
The house was close to the gate of the Kakul Military Academy, an army-run
institution where top officers train.
A US official said the strike force was on the ground for less than 40 minutes
and the operation was watched real-time by CIA Director Leon Panetta and other
intelligence officials in a conference room at CIA headquarters in Langley,
Virginia.
"When word came in that the operation was a success, CIA officials in the
conference room had a rather large applause," the official said.
Express 24/7 television showed an image of what it said was Bin Laden shot in
the head, his mouth pulled back in a grimace.
Operatives used facial recognition techniques to help identify Bin Laden, a US
official said.
DNA tests are also being conducted and results should be available in the next
few days, the official told Reuters.
An American administration official said the compound where the fugitive was
holed up was built in 2005 at the end of a narrow dirt road with
"extraordinary" security measures. He said it had 12- to 18-feet walls topped
with barbed wire with two security gates and no telephone or Internet service
connected to it.
A Pakistan intelligence official said the property where Bin Laden was staying
was 3,000 square feet.
Critics have long accused elements of Pakistan's security establishment of
protecting Bin Laden, though Islamabad has always denied this. Ties between the
United States and Pakistan have hit a low point in recent months over the
future of Afghanistan, and any hint of possible Pakistani collusion with Bin
Laden could hit them hard even amid the jubilation of getting American's No. 1
enemy.
One Pakistani official said the choppers took off from a Pakistani air base,
suggesting some cooperation in the raid. But President Barack Obama did not
thank Pakistan in his statement on Bin Laden's death.
Pakistan's foreign office hailed the death as a breakthrough in the
international campaign against militancy, and noted Al-Qaeda "had declared war
on Pakistan" and killed thousands of Pakistani civilians and security officers.
It stressed that the operation to kill Bin Laden was an American one, and did
not mention any concerns that Pakistani officials may have been protecting Bin
Laden in some way. Domestically, the government may yet face criticism by
political opponents and Islamists for allowing US forces to kill Bin Laden on
its soil.
Pakistani officials said a son of Bin Laden and three other people were killed.
Other unidentified males were taken by helicopter away from the scene, while
four children and two woman were arrested and left in an ambulance, the
official said.
A witness and a Pakistani official said Bin Laden's guards opened fire from the
roof of the compound in the small northwestern town of Abbottabad, and one of
the choppers crashed. However, US officials said no Americans were hurt in the
operation. The sound of at least two explosions rocked Abbottabad as the
fighting raged.
It was not known how long Bin Laden had been in Abbottabad, which is less than
half a days drive from the border region with Afghanistan.
Salman Riaz, a film actor, said that five months ago he and a crew tried to do
some filming next to the house, but were told to stop by two men who came out.
"They told me that this is haram (forbidden in Islam)," he said.
Abbottabad resident Mohammad Haroon Rasheed said the raid happened about 1:15
a.m. local time.
"I heard a thundering sound, followed by heavy firing.
Then firing suddenly stopped. Then more thundering, then a big blast," he said.
"In the morning when we went out to see what happened, some helicopter wreckage
was lying in an open field." "Intelligence analysts concluded that this
compound was custom built to hide someone of significance," he said.
A Pakistani official in the town said fighters on the roof opened fire on the
choppers as they came close to the building with rocket propelled grenades.
Another official said four helicopters took off from the Ghazi air base in
northwest Pakistan.
Last summer, the US army was based in Ghazi to help out in the aftermath of the
floods.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the
information.
Pakistan has in the past cooperated with the CIA in arresting Al-Qaeda suspects
on its soil, but relations between its main intelligence agency and the CIA had
been very strained in recent months amid tensions over the future of
Afghanistan.
In late January, a senior Indonesian Al-Qaeda operative, Umar Patek, was
arrested at another location in Abbottabad.
News of his arrest only broke in late March. A Pakistani intelligence official
said its officers were led to the house where Patek was staying after they
arrested an Al-Qaeda facilitator, Tahir Shahzad, who worked at the post office
there.
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