US to interrogate Osama’s widows

Pak to allow CIA officials access to the three wives who US forces left behind

US to interrogate Osama's widows

Pak to allow CIA officials access to the three wives who US forces left behind

Pakistan will allow the US access to three wives of Osama bin Laden who were taken into custody after the al-Qaeda leader was killed, despite a crisis in relations between the two countries. The CIA or officials from other government agencies will be permitted to interview the women, who were left behind in bin Laden's compound deep in Pakistan when US commandos killed him on May 2. The Pakistani government's decision is a change of heart after an outpouring of anger from Islamabad over not receiving advance notice of the commando raid from the Obama administration, and accusations that bin Laden could have received high-level protection.

Hide eout: Osama's widows lived in his Abbottabad compound. File Picu00a0

US officials are intensely interested in interviewing the widows, one of whom was with bin Laden in his bedroom when he was killed. She was shot in the leg when she rushed at a commando. Pakistan's decision to provide the access is a calculated risk because one of the main questions US authorities want to ask the women is whether bin Laden had a support network inside the country that allowed him to live for five years undetected in a fortified compound in the military city of Abbottabad.

The bin Laden widows in Pakistani custody are his youngest wife, Amal Al-Sadal (29) from Yemen, who was with bin Laden when he was killed, and two others originally from Saudi Arabia. It is not known if the women are willing to co-operate.US officials hope the women can elaborate on how bin Laden lived for so long in the compound and what outside assistance he might have received. They want any information the women have about how bin Laden might have commanded al-Qaeda from the compound, and his movements since the last time the US came close to targeting him in the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan in late 2001.

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