Pakistani security officials say Osama bin Laden may have lived in Pakista for over seven years before being shot dead by US forces
Osama bin Laden may have lived in Pakistan for over seven years before being shot dead by US forces, senior Pakistani security officials said on Saturday, a disclosure that could further anger key ally Washington over the presence of enemy number one in the country.
They noted that bin Laden's Yemeni wife Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah claimed the Al-Qaeda kingpin lived for five years in the compound in Abbottabad where he was shot dead by US commandos. The wife, who was shot in the leg during the raid by US Navy SEALs, is undergoing medical treatment and interrogation in Pakistan along with 15 of his other relatives, the officials said. "She said in Arabic that bin Laden and his family were living in this compound for the last five years and he never left the compound," one said. "But this is only her statement and we have not yet corroborated it," the official added. A second security official confirmed the information.
Abdulfattah, along with two other wives and several children, were among 15-16 people detained by Pakistani authorities at the compound after the raid.
On Friday, Al-Qaeda group proclaimed its Saudi-born founder a "martyr" and said he had "terrified all the nations of disbelief". It vowed the jihadist network would survive but did not name anyone to take over as its leader.
Mounting questions have been raised about how bin Laden managed to hide out for so long in Pakistan, in a town which is home to a top military academy and many retired generals. Former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf blamed the "incompetence" of his country's intelligence services, saying it was "terrible" that bin Laden had been hiding in Pakistan when he was still in office. But he also criticized the United States for violating Islamabad's sovereignty in carrying out the raid.
Meanwhile, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the death of bin Laden could be a "game-changer" for the US-led war effort in Afghanistan. He said it was too soon to say for certain what the effect of the raid might be on the nine-year-old war in Afghanistan. "I think in terms of the impact of the killing of Osama bin Laden, in terms of the situation in Afghanistan, I think that there is a possibility that it could be a game changer," Gates told service members at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina.
The Pentagon chief suggested that the killing of Bin Laden could aggravate tensions between the Taliban insurgency, which includes spiritual leader Mullah Omar, and Al-Qaeda. "Bin Laden and Mullah Omar had a very close personal relationship. And there are others in the Taliban who have felt betrayed by Al-Qaeda, that it was because of Al-Qaeda's attack on the United States that the Taliban got thrown out of Afghanistan," said Gates, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon. He added that it was too early to make a judgment in terms of the impact inside Afghanistan.
Gates spoke a day after holding a private meeting at an undisclosed location with the team of US Navy SEALs who carried out the raid on Bin Laden's compound. "He wanted to personally and privately express his admiration and appreciation for their extraordinary service and historic achievement," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.
