14 May,2011 07:15 AM IST | | Agencies
Under Pak ISI's watchful eye, US questioned the terrorist's 3 wivesu00a0
US intelligence officials have reportedly questioned the three "hostile" widows of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan but under the watchful eyes of the ISI. The womenu00a0-- who were all interviewed together this weeku00a0-- were "hostile" towards the Americans, according to a senior Pakistani government official and two senior US officials, an American news channel reported.
The eldest of the three widows, two Saudis and one Yemeni, spoke for the group. Members of Pakistan's military-run ISI were in the room along with the US intelligence officers, the unidentified officials said. The report said Americans had wanted to question the women separately to figure out inconsistencies in their stories.
The officials said that the questioning didn't yield much new information, while adding that it was early in the investigative process. They said that despite some well-publicised strains, there is an ongoing exchange of intelligence between the two countries.
The youngest of the three, 29-year-old Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah of Yemen, was shot in the leg on May 2 by the US Navy SEALs that killed their husband. An American official identified the other two widows as Khairiah Sabar, also known as Umm Hamza and Siham Sabar, or Umm Khalid. They were three of the al-Qaeda leader's five wives, two of whom had separated from him. Together, they gave birth to at least 20 of his children, including 11 sons, one of whom was killed in this month's US raid.
'No torture used to trace osama'
Republican Senator John McCain has broke ranks with his party colleagues by saying that "torture" of detained terrorists did not lead to Osama. "It was not torture or cruel treatment of detainees that got us the leads that enabled (us) to find Osama bin Laden," McCain's assertion was just opposite to those of his party men who claimed it was the torture techniques of Bush era that led them to trace bin Laden.
