US forces finally found al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden not in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan's border, but in a million-dollar compound in an upscale summer resort a little more than an hour's drive from Pakistan's capital, with his youngest wife, US officials said last morning.
US forces finally found al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden not in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan's border, but in a million-dollar compound in an upscale summer resort a little more than an hour's drive from Pakistan's capital, with his youngest wife, US officials said last morning.
Hideout: The residents of the mansion burnt their trash rather than
leaving it out for collection. Pic/AFP
US forces were led to the fortress-like three-storey building after more than four years of tracking one of bin Laden's most trusted couriers, whom US officials said was identified by men captured after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Bin Laden was finally foundu00a0-- more than nine years after the 2001 attacks on the United Statesu00a0-- after authorities discovered in August 2010 that the courier lived with his brother and their families in an unusual and extremely high-security building, officials said.
"When we saw the compound where the brothers lived, we were shocked by what we saw: an extraordinarily unique compound," a senior administration official said. The building, about eight times the size of other nearby houses, sat on a large plot of land that was relatively secluded when it was built in 2005.
Security measures
Intense security measures included 12- to 18-foot outer walls topped with barbed wire and internal walls that sectioned off different parts of the compound, officials said. Two security gates restricted access, and residents burned their trash, rather than leaving it for collection as did their neighbours, officials said.
Few windows of the three-story home faced the outside of the compound, and a terrace had a seven-foot privacy wall, officials said. "It is also noteworthy that the property is valued at approximately $1 million (Rsu00a0 4.43 crore) but has no telephone or Internet service connected to it," an administration official said. "The brothers had no explainable source of wealth."
Fake landlord
The owner of the house whereu00a0 bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan was holding a bogus national identity card.
The identity card bore the name of the house owner as Arshad son of Naqeeb, said to be a resident of Tangi Fas area of Charsadda, a private television channel in Pakistan said. According to the office of the local National Database and Registration Authority, charged with establishing a registration system for the Pakistani population, the card was bogus.
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