Obama planning next steps in Afghan drawdown

US President Barack Obama delivers remarks on education at the University of Colorado in Denver on October 26, 2011

The White House has asked the Pentagon for initial recommendations for the US troop presence in Afghanistan in 2014, a first step in planning the final US drawdown there despite a bleak security outlook.

Sources familiar with the discussions said President Barack Obama’s top aides have asked for scenarios for 2014. As part of that process, the Pentagon must look at troop levels for 2013 ― suggesting deeper withdrawals beyond the removal, by next September, of the 33,000 surge troops Obama deployed in a bid to turn around the flagging decade-old conflict.

“Planning for troop levels in 2013 and 2014 is now in a preliminary phase,” said Bruce Riedel, the former CIA officer who chaired the review of Afghan policy Obama ordered when he took office in 2009 and retains close White House ties.



Obama and allied leaders committed last year to turning security in Afghanistan over to Afghan control by 2014. And on a trip to Asia last week, Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said Gen. John Allen, the commander in Afghanistan, was developing a plan to gradually withdraw US forces.

But it has not been previously reported that the White House requested detailed planning to see that goal through.

The efforts to chart the course out of Afghanistan come as the White House takes decisive steps to end the bloody, costly wars that defined the decade following the September 11 attacks and refocus on an ailing US economy and the 2012 election.

Last month, Obama announced he was pulling remaining US troops from Iraq by the end of this year.

Regarding Afghanistan, the White House has not publicly announced its plans beyond the September 2012 drawdown of the surge troops.

“The President will make decisions on the size and shape of our post-September 2012 presence at the appropriate time, in consultation with our Afghan and NATO partners,” said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.

Even as the Obama administration presses ahead with its drawdown plans, security remains troubling on the ground and the Afghan government remains perilously weak and corrupt.

A plan to aggressively shrink a US force that will be about 68,000-strong in October 2012 will not sit well with the Pentagon, which wants to hold on to a larger force for as long as possible as it seeks to make security gains permanent.

The Pentagon claims to have driven Taliban insurgents out of many of their southern strongholds. But the United Nations says overall violence is at its worst since the start of the war 10 years ago, despite the presence of more than 130,000 troops in a NATO-led force.

On Saturday, a suicide car bomber killed 17 people in Kabul, including 13 troops and civilian employees of the NATO-led forces, the latest bold attack in the Afghan capital that deepened questions about security.

Beyond 2012 drawdown

While the Obama administration will focus in coming months on pulling surge forces ― General Allen must submit by April a detailed plan for the 23,000 soldiers to be withdrawn between January and the end of September 2012 ― it is now actively looking beyond that date. A decision does not appear imminent.

“We’ve repeatedly said that the nature of the drawdown after the surge troops come home will be conditions-based. No decisions have been made,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said, without directly addressing the White House request.

A senior defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that officials were “working through various scenarios on what the contours of a post-2014 strategic relationship with Afghanistan might look like.”

Still, the official said, “it’s too early to draft up firm or specific force drawdown plans for 2013 and 2014 when the leaves have barely started to fall in late 2011.”

Yet Obama’s intentions to curtail the US military footprint overseas seem clear. Making the surprise announcement last month that Washington would abandon efforts to secure an extended troop presence in Iraq, Obama repeated his claim that the “tide of war is receding.”

“When I took office, roughly 180,000 troops were deployed in both these wars,” Obama said. “By the end of this year that number will be cut in half, and make no mistake: it will continue to go down.”

The desire to bring the Afghan war to an end is shared by Washington’s NATO partners, who are wrapped up in their own fiscal crises and likewise plan to bring their troops home.

“The issue is very simple. You stay, you lose. You leave, you lose,” a European official said recently.

Post–2014 presence?

The early planning appears linked to efforts to conclude a strategic partnership deal with the shaky government led by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which the administration hopes to seal with an international conference to be held in Bonn, Germany, in early December, or by year’s end.

“We’re going to get that done,” a US military official said on condition of anonymity. “The Afghans are going to ask us to stay and I think we will.”

That agreement is not expected to define how many troops would stay beyond 2014 to help bolster Afghan forces, but would likely commit both sides in principle to a US military presence that would be negotiated in detail in a subsequent “Status of Forces” agreement.

“I think it will outline the broad types of things that US forces will do,” the official said.

James Dobbins, a former White House official, said Obama’s decision on a final drawdown schedule would be based on suggestions from his military advisors.

“(Similar troop) decisions have been hotly argued, but it wasn’t like the Bush administration where decisions were made before commanders were consulted,” Dobbins said.

Yet many security experts voiced worries that the drawdown would be defined by a Washington-driven timeline at the expense of judgments made on the battlefield.

“The idea that as of today in 2011 that you could plot out a trajectory for a troop withdrawal seems to be divorced from the conditions on the ground,” said Daniel Markey, an expert on Pakistan and Afghanistan at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“That said, you would have to expect that this administration would have to make preliminary plans.”

The administration’s ambitions reflect not just mounting public weariness with the war and its giant costs, but also growing exasperation with Pakistan, which Washington accuses of backing insurgents fuelling violence in Afghanistan.

While Obama will take such factors into account before announcing a decision on the next drawdown steps, which could come at a NATO summit in Chicago in May or before, changes will be unlikely once the president settles on a drawdown schedule.

News of the drawdown plans is likely to intensify worries in Kabul that, despite the repeated US pledges of a long-term presence, the Afghan government will be left in the lurch.

Western officials “believe that much progress has been made and is being made for a successful transition to proceed, and will stick to the actual 2014 timeframe. We believe that realities on the ground indicate something else,” one senior Afghan official said on condition of anonymity.

“If enough progress is not made, and 2014 is just seen as a date to leave, we will face serious problems.”

Taliban chief has disappeared in Pakistan

he Afghan intelligence agency says the reclusive leader of the Taliban has disappeared from a suspected hideout in Pakistan and has been out of contact with his commanders for days - adding further questions about Mullah Mohammad Omar after a media ....

Kabul—Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was killed in Pakistan, a private Afghan television channel reported on Monday. “Mullah Omar was killed on his way from Quetta to North Waziristan,” TOLO television said in its news bulletin. ...

The Taliban says its spiritual leader, Mullah Omar, is alive and well. Western diplomats, as well as Pakistani tribal and intelligence sources, also downplay reports that Omar — who gave shelter to Osama bin Laden after 9/11 — is dead.

Afghanistan's intelligence services on Monday confirmed that the one-eyed Taliban leader Mullah Omar, with a US$10 million bounty on his head, had disappeared from his Quetta hideout in Pakistan. "We can confirm about the disappearance of Omar five ...

Obama: Would raid Pakistan again if militant found

President Barack Obama is seen being interviewed by Britian’s Andrew Marr of the BBC in the Diplomatic Reception Room in the White House, in Washington on May 21, 2011..


US President Barack Obama would approve a new incursion into Pakistan if the United States found another leading militant there, he said in a BBC interview broadcast today.

US Navy Seals killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11 attacks on US cities in 2001, in a raid on his fortified compound in Pakistan on May 2, ending a manhunt for the world’s most-wanted militant.



Asked if Obama would do the same again if the United States discovered another “high-value target” in Pakistan or another country, such as a senior al Qaeda member or Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, he said he would “take the shot”.

“We are very respectful of the sovereignty of Pakistan. But we cannot allow someone who is actively planning to kill our people or our allies’ people, we can’t allow those kind of active plans to come to fruition without us taking some action,” Obama told the BBC.

“I had made no secret. I had said this when I was running for the presidency, that if I had a clear shot at bin Laden, that we’d take it.”

Obama’s comments echoed those of US Senator John Kerry, a Democrat close to his administration and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Asked this month if the United States would conduct a similar raid in Pakistan to kill Omar if they knew his whereabouts, he said Washington would consider all its options.

US officials have long maintained Omar fled to Pakistan after the Taliban government was overthrown in late 2001 by US-backed Afghan forces and is still in hiding there. Islamabad has denied reports he is in Pakistan.

Obama arrives in Britain on Tuesday for a three-day state visit — the first state visit by a US president since 2003.

He will hold talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron and address the parliament to hail the two countries’ special relationship and stress the importance of transatlantic ties.

Two US troops killed as Baghdad hit by bombs

A soldier inspects the remains of a vehicle used in a bomb attack in Baghdad’s Sadr city May 22, 2011. A string of bombings and explosions killed at least 13 people and wounded 74 in the Baghdad area yesterday, including a suicide bombing targeting Iraqi soldiers north of the capital, security officials said.


A string of bombings killed at least 15 people and wounded 74 more across Baghdad yesterday and two US troops were killed in central Iraq, officials said.

Violence in Iraq has dropped sharply since the height of sectarian conflict four years ago, but bombings, assassinations and attacks occur daily as the remaining US troops prepare to pull out of the country by the end of this year.



At least 11 Iraqi troops were killed when a bomber blew up his car among a group of soldiers investigating another car bomb outside a checkpoint on a main street in Taji, 20km north of Baghdad, said the capital’s security spokesman, Major-General Qassim al-Moussawi.

“Two vehicles exploded in Taji. The first was a parked car bomb. They were trying to defuse it, when another driver blew himself up,” he said.

The two US troops were killed on Sunday during operations in central Iraq, the US military said in a statement with no further details of when or how they died.

Iraqi security forces and police are often targeted by insurgents as Washington prepares to withdraw the last US troops at year-end, more than eight years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein from power.

Yesterday, four roadside bombs and a parked car bomb also targeted an Iraqi Federal Police base in Amil District, southwestern Baghdad, killing two civilians and wounding 15 including three policemen, a security official said.

Two more people were killed and another seven were wounded by another roadside bomb planted near a hospital in Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad.

Iraqi forces will take over full control of security at the end of this year when the remaining 47,000 US troops are scheduled to leave Iraq. US troops are now mainly engaged in training and advising Iraqi forces.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said Iraqi forces are ready to contain internal threats. But he has called on Iraq’s main political parties to discuss the sensitive issue of whether to extend the presence of some US troops.

Some officials have suggested a small US force remain to assist Iraqis in areas such as intelligence and border security. But already the idea of US troops remaining has sparked street protests.

Three other soldiers were also killed yesterday by a bomb attached to their Iraqi army vehicle in the town of Tuz Khurmato 170km north of Baghdad, police said.

Three bombs targeting security forces killed 27 people last week in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, a disputed area with a mixed Arab and Kurd population and a potential flashpoint once US troops leave.

Pakistan's nuclear surge exposed

Recent satellite images obtained by Fox News from the aerial imagery company GEOEYE show an expanding nuclear facility at the Khushab facility about 100 miles south of Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad.

Fearing power vacuum, Russia cosies up to Afghanistan

Still haunted by its own disastrous war in Afghanistan, Russia is tiptoeing back into Kabul’s affairs ahead of a gradual withdrawal of Nato troops that could leave a dangerous power vacuum in what was once a traditional sphere of influence.

Moscow has refused to send troops to the war, which is becomingly increasingly unpopular as it drags into its 10th year, but it has backed drug raids, and increased support for Nato and local forces. It has also showed interest in business deals as it vies to boost its clout in Afghanistan.

Russia has welcomed Afghan President Hamid Karzai twice in the past 12 months, where he directly asked his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev for help with security.





Long indirectly involved in Afghan affairs through supporting foreign operations, Russia is now pursuing ‘independent engagement’, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on Afghanistan and fellow at the Brookings Institution.

‘Russia’s primary objective is to avoid having civil war, instability and leakages into Central Asia and into Russia itself,’ Felbab-Brown told Reuters from Washington.

Moscow has also been courting Pakistan, seen as instrumental to peace plans in Afghanistan, where some 15,000 Soviet soldiers died fighting mujahideen insurgents before pulling out in 1989.

Russia agreed last year to expand on a transit deal to allow Nato to take armoured vehicles through its territory. It had already allowed the military alliance to ship food and fuel.

An agreement to supply the United States with 21 military helicopters is also expected to be completed by year-end.

‘Russia certainly does not want America to remain in the region,’ said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the journal Russia in Global Affairs. ‘At the same time, there is also the concern that the US departure, particularly a swift one, will make the situation much more difficult’.

Moscow also hopes to be involved in several economic projects, including a proposed gas pipeline and hydroelectric power facilities in Kabul. Russia has said it would rebuild Soviet-era infrastructure, which it built in the 1950s-1970s, if the international community footed the bill.

Violence, uncertainty

Despite escalating violence, Washington and Nato have pledged to begin a gradual security transition from July as part of a plan that will see all foreign combat troops leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Experts say the first transition phase — to begin in seven areas — is more about symbolism than substance, but agree the handover is still crucial to determining the readiness of Afghan forces.

Violence last year hit its worst levels since US-backed Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban government in late 2001, but Washington and its allies have backed Karzai’s peace plan, which includes negotiations with Taliban-led insurgents.

However, there is still little idea how that plan will work and the likelihood of more political uncertainty looms.

Still wary of a country at the heart of the ‘Great Game’ — the historic rivalry between Britain and Russia during the 19th and 20th centuries, Moscow is now also driven by its fear of growing Islamism.

Russia is afraid the troop drawdown will allow militants to filter into the oil and gas-producing mainly Muslim countries of ex-Soviet Central Asia.

Last month the head of a Russia-dominated regional security bloc, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), warned member states that Afghan insurgent activity was already spreading to the bordering Central Asian countries.

‘This is one of the main destabilising factors presenting a real threat to collective security in the Central Asian region,’ the CSTO’s Nikolai Bordyuzha said in Moscow.

Moscow is so alarmed, security sources and analysts say, that it is in talks with Tajikistan — whose southern border with Afghanistan is long and porous — to send up to 3,000 Russian border guards to protect the country from a spillover of violence.

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan also border Afghanistan.

‘It is possible we could see a resurgence of the Taliban, and the Islamist movements in Central Asia might be emboldened by this,’ said Gemma Ferst from the London-based Eurasia Group.

Twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, homegrown Islamist movements now exist in all Central Asian countries, Ferst added, and links to the international radical community have already been established.

Uphill battle

Russia also has worries closer to home.

The Kremlin is waging an uphill battle with Islamist insurgents in its mainly Muslim North Caucasus region, underpinned by Soviet-era deportations and two separatist wars in Chechnya since 1994.

Potential chaos in Afghanistan after foreign troops leave could encourage Russia’s rebels, who are bent on carving out an independent Islamic state and stage near-daily attacks across the North Caucasus.

Escalating their campaign, they also said they carried out the suicide bombings that killed a total of 77 people in Moscow’s busiest airport in January and on the Moscow metro last year.

‘There are fears that (violence) might reverberate into the North Caucasus, and how moral encouragement from Afghanistan could fuel salafism and separatism there,’ said Felbab-Brown, referring to the ultra-conservative branch of Islam that the Caucasus rebels follow.

Afghan militants have openly supported the North Caucasus in the past: the Taliban government recognised Chechnya as independent in 2000 and even set up an embassy in Kabul.

Russia’s crippling drugs crisis and a looming HIV/AIDS epidemic have also reignited Moscow’s interest in Afghan intervention. A quarter of all Afghan heroin reaches Russia through Central Asia, making it the largest per capita user in the world with up to 3 million addicts.

Though Russia has vowed repeats of a joint raid with the US last year, in which they destroyed four drug labs and a tonne of heroin near the Afghan border with Pakistan, it also disagrees with its Cold War foe over local drug output.

‘The drug trade feeds into militant activity, which poses a risk for Central Asia, and this is of course something that motivates us,’ said anti-drugs tsar Viktor Ivanov, referring to Russia’s desire to destroy poppy crops.

The United States has said eradicating poppy plantations would push disgruntled Afghan farmers into insurgents’ hands.

Tensions increase in Pakistan after Nato helicopter injures two soldiers in attack on Afghan border

A Nato helicopter attacked a Pakistani army post near the Afghan border today, injuring two Pakistani soldiers in an incident that could further increase tensions following the U.S. raid that killed Osama Bin Laden, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Nato confirmed there were helicopters flying near the Pakistani border and was investigating the reported attack.

‘There were helicopters operating in the border region, and we are aware there has been an incident,’ said Nato coalition spokesman Lt. Col. John Dorrian. ‘But we are going to have to assess the situation.’

Catch it if you can: A U.S Marine Cobra attack helicopter fires diversionary flares as it flies near Forward Operating Base Edi in the volatile Helmand Province

Fearsome: Cobra attack helicopters, like this one pictured in southern Afghanistan, are regularly used to battle the Taliban

He declined to give further details or say which Nato country was involved.

Most of the helicopters that fly in that part of Afghanistan are American.

Nato helicopters that fly in the area are outfitted with equipment that monitors whether they cross over the Pakistani border, said a Nato official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Authorities are now reviewing that equipment, said the official.

The attack took place this morning in the Datta Khel area of the North Waziristan tribal region, said the Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Pakistani troops responded with machine gun fire and deployed two helicopter gunships over the post, but the Nato helicopter had already left, they said.

It is unclear how Pakistan will respond if the Nato helicopter attack is confirmed.

Last September, a U.S. helicopter attack killed two Pakistani soldiers at an outpost near the Afghan border, prompting Pakistan to close a key border crossing for 11 days that Nato uses to ship goods into landlocked Afghanistan. The U.S. apologised, saying the pilots mistook the soldiers for insurgents being pursued across the border from Afghanistan.

Relations are even more tense now following the Navy Seal raid on May 2 that killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad, an army town only about 35 miles (55 kilometres) outside the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The Pakistani government is outraged that the U.S. carried out the operation without telling them first, and many U.S. officials have expressed disbelief that Bin Laden could have lived in Abbottabad for at least five years without Pakistan knowing. However, the U.S. has also said it has not found any evidence yet that Pakistani leaders knew of Bin Laden's whereabouts.

The helicopter attack comes a day after U.S. Senator John Kerry wrapped up a 24-hour visit to Islamabad in which he worked to salvage the relationship with Pakistan, but also warned the government that ‘actions not words’ were needed to get ties back on track. Kerry was the most high-profile American to visit Pakistan since the raid that killed Bin Laden.

Kerry said Pakistan had agreed to immediately take several ‘specific steps’ to improve ties, but did not say what they were.

The only tangible signs of progress were a remark by Kerry that Pakistan had agreed to give America the tail of a classified stealth helicopter destroyed by U.S. commandos when it malfunctioned during the raid and an announcement that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would soon announce a trip to the country.

But there have also been signs of Pakistan's anger.

The Pakistani government sent the U.S. a written request following the Bin Laden raid asking Washington to reduce the number of American military personnel in the country, said a U.S. military official.

There are currently more than 200 U.S. military personnel in Pakistan, some of whom are tasked with training Pakistani troops, said the official. Pakistan has asked the U.S. to reduce the number of trainers in the country, but the official would not specify the numbers involved.

Diplomatic mission: U.S Senator John Kerry (left) shakes hands with Pakisan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani

US deepens engagement with Afghan Taliban to end war

The United States has stepped up direct talks with the Afghan Taliban for a political settlement of the 10-year-old war, the Washington Post reported today, a move analysts said earlier had been made easier with the death of Osama bin Laden.

A US representative attended at least three meetings in Qatar and Germany, including one “eight or nine days ago” with a Taliban official considered close to the group’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the report said, citing an Afghan official.

It said Washington was hoping to make progress in these talks before July, when President Barack Obama announces the first troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, part of a process of handing over responsibilities to Afghan forces by 2014.



The report about the talks comes more than two weeks after the death of bin Laden at the hands of US special forces in Pakistan, which analysts said helped clear the path for a political settlement in Afghanistan by making it easier for the Taliban to sever ties with his al Qaeda.

The Taliban sheltered bin Laden in Afghanistan for years, until US-backed Afghan forces toppled them in 2001, unleashing a war between US-led Nato forces and the Islamist group.

But with insurgent violence in Afghanistan at its highest in years and falling domestic support for the war, Western nations, including the United States, have come to back Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s efforts to seek reconciliation with the Taliban.

The Washington Post said the talks with the Taliban had taken place through non-government intermediaries and Arab and European governments. The Taliban, it said, had insisted on direct negotiations with the Americans and proposed opening a formal office, with Qatar as a possible venue.

The discussions were still preliminary. It said the Taliban had transmitted a longstanding list of demands, including the release of up to 20 fighters detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It also wanted withdrawal of all foreign troops and a guarantee of a substantive Taliban role in government.

The US and Afghan governments want the Taliban to end all violence and to observe the Afghan constitution, including respect for minority rights and those of women, and the rule of law.

The report said the discussions were being conducted with the part of the Taliban that answered to Mullah Omar or had influence in his Pakistan-based Quetta shura.

It quoted officials as saying that no role had been played by the Haqqani network, a group of Afghan fighters based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region seen by the Obama administration as particularly brutal and irreconcilable.

The Haqqani network has had longstanding links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, seen to have used the insurgent group as one of its “strategic assets” in Afghanistan.

The ISI is under a cloud following the discovery and killing of bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad, facing questions of complicity in shielding him or plain incompetence. —Reuters

Al Qaeda Reportedly Picks Interim Operational Leader

Egyptian militant Saif al-Adel reportedly has taken over as an interim operational leader of Al Qaeda until the terror group appoints Usama bin Laden’s permanent successor after the U.S. Navy SEALs' deadly raid on bin Laden's Pakistan.

Noman Benotman, an analyst with the Quilliam Foundation think tank and a former associate of bin Laden, told Reuters of the promotion Tuesday. Al-Adel will remain as Al Qaeda's operational leader while the organization collects pledges to appoint Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's top deputy, as Al Qaeda's new leader – a move that is expected.

Benotman cited contacts in jihadist circles as his sources, but the report could not be independently confirmed.



"This role that he has assumed is not as overall leader, but he is in charge in operational and military terms," he told Reuters.

U.S. prosecutors say Al-Adel helped coordinate the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Al-Adel also served as the head of the military committee of Al Qaeda following the death of Mohammed Atef in late 2001, making him the commander over Khalid Sheikh Muhammad.

He has a longstanding working relation with Iran, going back the early 1990s, when he went from Sudan to Lebanon to be trained by Hezbollah in improvised explosive devices, or IEDs. Al-Adel returned to Sudan and Afghanistan in the 1990s to set up training camps for Al Qaeda.

Al-Adel was the coordinator of the May 2003 attacks in Saudi Arabia and probably Morocco. He was captured, but in March 2009 he was released in exchange for an Iranian diplomat who was kidnapped in the tribal areas of Pakistan two years earlier.

Navy Seals In Action

Details of Osama Bin Laden raid reveal how close mission came to failure

* Obama did not ask who shot Bin Laden after meeting SEAL Team Six
* 23 SEALs raided compound, wile others waited outside for Pakistani forces
* Weight of men and gear on Stealth Blackhawks measured to within an ounce
* Interpreter and search dog called Cairo part of raiding team
* 'Two dozen' more SEALS waited in back up Chinooks
* Element of surprise ruined after Blackhawk crashed in front yard

It was the single most important U.S. military mission of the last decade - capture or kill Osama Bin Laden.

With state of the art technology and an unparalleled level of secrecy, every part of the mission had been planned to the second.

But new details have emerged showing just how close run the fabled SEAL Team Six assault on Bin Laden's hideout was, after the plan quickly fell apart.

Adding exclusive new details to the account of the assault , officials described just how the SEAL raiders were forced to ditch a foundering helicopter right outside the elusive terrorist's door, ruining the plan for a surprise assault.

Silence: Team six have been told by their commander to remain tight lipped about the raid on Osama bin Laden's house

Caught out: Osama bin Laden's compound was filled with evidence which the SEALs scooped up before fleeing the compound

Versatile: While they are associated with sea operations, they can operate in any environment, including high altitude parachute insertion

Deadly: Navy SEALs are highly trained and well equipped elite soldiers used in the most challenging of missions

Unravelling: The Black Hawk helicopter, like the one seen here, could not cope with the unforeseen hot weather and had to land

Auspicious: Team six was selected to carry out the mission, and it is understood they will soon return to active duty in Afghanistan

Destroyed: The SEALs wasted no time blowing up the helicopter during the mission

Speaking on condition of anonymity, officials close to the operation revealed how originally two SEAL teams were to enter Bin Laden's house separately - one from the roof and one from the ground.

The aim was to 'squeeze' the terror mastermind as the raiders worked their way through the complex from both sides in search of their target.

But almost immediately the raid ran into trouble after one of the specially adapted 'stealth' Blackhawk helicopters became unsteady and had to ditch - nose first - into the compound's courtyard.

Loosing the element of suprise, the SEAL's switched to plan B as they busted into the ground floor and began a floor-by-floor storming of the house, working up to the top level where they had assumed bin Laden - if he was in the house - would be.

It took approximately 15 minutes to reach Bin Laden, one official said.

The raiders came face-to-face with the Al-Qaeda leader in a hallway outside his bedroom, and three of the Americans stormed in after him, U.S. officials have revealed.

Fearing he would detonate a suicide vest, the SEALS flung his wives aside before shooting him in the head and chest - known as 'double tapping'.

The next 23 minutes were spent blowing up the broken Black Hawk, after rounding up nine women and 18 children, to get them out of range of the blast.

The decision to launch on that moonless May 2 night came largely because too many American officials had been briefed on the plan and it was feared it could be leaked to the press and Bin Laden would disappear yet again.

The job was given to elite SEAL Team 6 unit, just back from Afghanistan, who had been hunting bin Laden in eastern Afghanistan since 2001.

Five aircraft flew from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, with three school-bus-size Chinook helicopters landing in a deserted area roughly two-thirds of the way to bin Laden's compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

Aboard two Black Hawk helicopters were 23 SEALs, an interpreter and a tracking dog named Cairo.

Nineteen SEALs would enter the compound, and three of them would find bin Laden, one official said, with two dozen more SEALs there as backup.

The Black Hawks were specially engineered to muffle the tail rotor and engine sound.

The added weight of the stealth technology meant cargo was calculated to the gram, with weather factored in.

The Black Hawks were to drop the SEALs and depart in less than two minutes, in hopes locals would assume they were Pakistani aircraft visiting the nearby military academy.

One was to hover above the compound, with SEALs sliding down ropes into the open courtyard, while the other was to hover above the roof to drop SEALs there, then land more SEALs outside, plus an interpreter and the dog, who would track anyone who tried to escape and to alert SEALs to any approaching Pakistani security forces.

If troops appeared, the plan was to hunker down in the compound, avoiding armed confrontation with the Pakistanis while officials in Washington negotiated their passage out.

The two SEAL teams inside would work toward each other, in a simultaneous attack from above and below, their weapons silenced, guaranteeing surprise, one of the officials said.

They would have stormed the building in a matter of minutes, as they'd done time and again in two training models of the compound.

But the plan unravelled as the first helicopter tried to hover over the compound.

The Black Hawk skittered around uncontrollably because of the hot weather and the heat-thinned air forced the pilot to land.

As he did, the tail and rotor got caught on one of the compound's 12ft high walls. The pilot quickly buried the aircraft's nose in the dirt to keep it from tipping over, and the SEALs rushed into an outer courtyard.

The other aircraft did not even attempt hovering, landing its SEALs outside the compound.

Now, the raiders were outside, and they'd lost the element of surprise.

They had trained for this, and started blowing their way in with explosives, through walls and doors, working their way up the three-level house from the bottom.

They had to blow their way through barriers at each stair landing, firing back, as one of the men in the house fired at them.

They shot three men as well as one woman, whom U.S. officials have said lunged at the SEALs.

Small knots of children were on every level, including the balcony of bin Laden's room.

As three of the SEALs reached the top of the steps on the third floor, they saw bin Laden standing at the end of the hall, before he ducked into his room.

The three SEALs assumed he was going for a weapon, and one by one they rushed after him through the door, one official described.

Two women were in front of bin Laden - yelling and trying to protect him, two officials said.

The first SEAL grabbed the two women and shoved them away, fearing they might be wearing suicide bomb vests, they said.

The SEAL behind him opened fire at bin Laden, putting one bullet in his chest, and one in his head.

Back at the White House Situation Room, word was relayed that bin Laden had been found, signalled by the code word 'Geronimo.'

That was not bin Laden's code name, but rather a representation of the letter 'G.'

Each step of the mission was labelled alphabetically, and 'Geronimo' meant that the raiders had reached step 'G,' the killing or capture of bin Laden, two officials said.

As the SEALs began photographing the body for identification, the raiders found an AK-47 rifle and a Russian-made Makarov pistol on a shelf by the door they'd just run through. Bin Laden hadn't touched them.

They were among a handful of weapons that were removed to be inventoried.

One of the waiting Chinooks flew in to pick up bin Laden's body, the raiders from the broken aircraft and the weapons, documents and other materials seized at the site.

The level of distrust between the U.S. and Pakistan is such that keeping the allies in the dark was a major factor in planning the raid, and led to using the high-tech but sometimes unpredictable helicopter technology that nearly unhinged the mission.

When the SEAL team met President Barack Obama, he did not ask who shot bin Laden but simply thanked each member of the team.

In a few weeks, the team that killed bin Laden will go back to training, and in a couple of months, back to work overseas.

Osama Bin Laden's Dirty Secrets - Pakistan braces for more revenge attacks -

Pakistan Suicide Bombs to Avenge Bin Laden - Osama sons say US violated international law

Bombers take bin Laden revenge in Pakistan

Victims of the bombing being transported to hospitals May 13, 2011.

Suicide bombers killed 80 people at a Pakistani paramilitary academy yesterday in revenge for the death of Osama bin Laden in a US raid and militants in Pakistan vowed to carry out more attacks.

A member of the Pakistani parliament said Lieutenant-General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, Pakistan’s spy chief, said he was “ready to resign” over the bin Laden affair that has embarrassed the nation. Pakistan’s opposition leader accused the Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, spy agency of negligence and incompetence.

Followers of bin Laden have vowed revenge for the al Qaeda chief’s death and the Pakistani Taliban said Friday’s attack by two suicide bombers in the northwestern town of Charsadda was their first taste of vengeance.

“There will be more,” militant spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The bombers struck as recruits were going on leave and 65 of them were among the 80 dead. Pools of blood strewn with soldiers’ caps and shoes lay on the road outside the academy as the wounded, looking dazed with parts of their clothes ripped away by shrapnel, were loaded into trucks.



Pakistan’s military and government have drawn criticism at home, partly for not finding bin Laden but more for failing to detect or stop the US raid on May 2 that killed him.

A senior Pakistani general also cancelled a planned visit to the United States. Pakistan depends heavily on US aid.

In addition, US authorities in Pakistan interviewed three of bin Laden’s widows, detained by Pakistan in the compound after the US raid, but gathered little new information, US officials said in Washington.

Pakistan said it would repatriate the three widows and their children. One is from Yemen and the others from Saudi Arabia.

US special forces killed bin Laden, the man behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, at a compound near Pakistan’s top military academy in the northern town of Abbottabad. Pakistan welcomed his death as a major step against militancy but called the secret US raid a violation of its sovereignty.

Shahid Ali, 28, was on his way to his shop when the bombs went off in Charsadda. He tried to help survivors. “A young boy was lying near a wrecked van asked me to take him to hospital. I got help and we got him into a vehicle,” Ali said.

‘DISRUPT, DISMANTLE AND DEFEAT’

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Mark Toner condemned the attack, offered condolences to the families of the victims, and stressed the US alliance with Pakistan.

“Terrorists have shown time and again that they are the true enemy ... of the people and the government of Pakistan,” Toner said. “We respect the nation’s sacrifices in the fight against terrorism and will continue to stand with Pakistan in our joint struggle to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and allied terrorist organisations.”

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the United States would be “very vigilant” about revenge attacks.

Hours after the bombing, a US drone aircraft fired missiles at a vehicle in North Waziristan on the Afghan border, killing five militants, Pakistani security officials said.

It was the fourth drone attack since bin Laden was killed, inflaming another sore issue between Pakistan and the United States. Pakistan officially objects to the attacks, saying they violate its sovereignty and feed public anger.

Military and intelligence chiefs gave parliament a closed-door briefing in which ISI chief Pasha told legislators he was ready to take responsibility for any criminal failing, Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan said.

“If any of our responsibility is determined and any gap identified, that our negligence was criminal negligence, and there was an intentional failure, then we are ready to face any consequences,” Awan told Express TV, citing Pasha.

Another member of parliament said Pasha told the assembly he did not want to “hang around” if parliament deems him responsible. “I am ready to resign,” Riaz Fatyana quoted the ISI chief as saying.

The spy chief also told parliament bin Laden had been isolated, Awan said. “We had already killed all his allies and so we had killed him even before he was dead. He was living like a dead man,” Awan quoted Pasha as saying.

The chairman of Pakistan’s joint chiefs of staff committee, General Khalid Shameem Wynne, canceled a five-day visit to the United States that had been set to begin on May 22.

“The visit could not be undertaken under existing circumstances,” a military official told Reuters.

He did not elaborate, but the decision to cancel the visit came as the Cabinet defense committee said it was reviewing cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism.

US officials are sifting through what they describe as a treasure trove of intelligence material seized in the raid on bin Laden’s compound.

Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, revealed on Friday that a stash of video pornography was found in the hideout there but said they did not know if bin Laden himself had acquired or viewed the material.

The White House also said President Barack Obama would lay out his vision for Middle East policy next Thursday, using bin Laden’s death as a chance to recast the US response to political upheaval in the Arab world.

Former US President George W. Bush, who spent years searching in vain for bin Laden, described for the first time the call he received from Obama informing him that US forces had killed the al Qaeda leader.

Bush said he was eating souffles at a Dallas restaurant when he got word Obama was trying to reach him.

“I excused myself and went home to take the call,” Bush said. “Obama simply said, ‘Osama bin Laden is dead.’” After Obama described the US raid and the decision he made to go ahead with the mission, Bush said he told Obama, “Good call.”

Under fire, Pakistan’s PM to address nation on bin Laden’s death

Political rivals took aim at Pakistan’s leaders today over the killing of Osama bin Laden, compounding US pressure over the al Qaeda leader’s hideout, as the prime minister prepared to address parliament on the crisis for the first time.

Pakistan’s main opposition party is stepping up calls for the prime minister and president to resign over the breach of sovereignty by US special forces who slipped in from Afghanistan to storm the compound where bin Laden was holed up.

“We want resignations, not half-baked explanations,” an official of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League told the News daily.





Pakistan welcomed the death of bin Laden, who plotted the September 11, 2001, airliner attacks on the United States, as a step in the fight against militancy but also complained that the US helicopter raid to kill him was a violation of its sovereignty.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who will make his statement when parliament sits at 1:00pm British time, is expected to deliver a stern warning against further military missions inside Pakistan by foreign forces.

The incident has added to strains in ties between Islamabad and Washington, which are crucial to combating Islamist militants and the war in Afghanistan.



Tense relations with Washington

Relations were already fragile after a string of diplomatic disputes over issues including a big attack by a US drone aircraft in March and Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistanis in the city of Lahore in January.

Potentially stirring tension further, a Pakistani TV channel and a newspaper published what they said was the name of the undercover CIA station chief in Islamabad.

The US embassy declined to comment, but said no one of that name worked at the mission in Pakistan.

Last year, after the chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency was named in a US civil case over attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai, the then-head of the CIA’s Islamabad station was named by Pakistani media and he was forced to leave the country.

Islamabad has been embarrassed by the discovery of the world’s most-wanted man in a high-walled compound in Abbottabad town, just 50km north of the capital and a short distance from Pakistan’s main military academy. It has led to accusations of either incompetence on the part of its intelligence service, or complicity in sheltering him.

“If he was really living in that compound for five years ... then why didn’t our agencies discover him?” former foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told reporters. “This has given anti-Pakistani elements a chance to ridicule us.”

Gilani has blamed bin Laden’s evasion of capture for nearly a decade since the September 11 attacks on a “global intelligence failure,” and the United States has stopped short of accusing Pakistan of providing shelter to bin Laden.

Obama suspects support network

US President Barack Obama said yesterday that bin Laden likely had “some sort” of a support network inside Pakistan, but added it would take investigations by Pakistan and the United States to find out just what the nature of that support was.

“We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don’t know who or what that support network was,” Obama said.

“We don’t know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that’s something that we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate,” he added.

The government’s opponents at home are incensed more about the humiliation of an unannounced swoop by helicopter-borne foreign forces in Pakistan than they are about the possibility that establishment insiders knew where bin Laden was hiding.

“I think it is a big blow to Pakistan’s sovereignty, Pakistan’s independence and Pakistan’s self-respect,” former prime minister Sharif told reporters in Lahore. “Pakistan is in a grave crisis and is surrounded by big danger.”

Suspicion has deepened that the pervasive ISI, which has a long history of contacts with militant groups, may have had ties with the al Qaeda leader ‘ or that some of its agents did.

Talat Masood, a retired general and defence analyst, said that if there was official collusion to keep bin Laden secure it was most likely provided at a local level.

“I feel definitely there were influential people who were protecting him,” he told Reuters. “I believe there was real ignorance at the highest level but there was collusion at the local level.”

Doubts about bin Laden’s influence

Pakistani security officials reacted with scepticism to a US assertion that bin Laden was actively engaged in directing his far-flung network from his Abbottabad compound.

Washington has said that, based on a trove of information that would fill a small college library seized in the raid, the hide-out was an “active command and control centre” for al Qaeda where he was involved in plotting attacks on the United States.

Pakistani officials said the fact that there was no Internet connection or even telephone line into the compound where he was hiding raised doubts about his centrality to al Qaeda.

“It sounds ridiculous,” said a senior Pakistani intelligence official. “It doesn’t sound like he was running a terror network.”

Analysts have long maintained that, years before bin Laden’s death, al Qaeda had fragmented into a decentralised group that operated tactically without him.

Iraq’s Qaeda pledges support to Zawahri, vows attacks

Al Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri speaks in this file video footage released on April 29, 2006.

An al Qaeda-linked militant group in Iraq pledged support to the organisation’s second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, and vowed more revenge attacks for the death of Osama bin Laden at the hands of US forces in Pakistan.

In a statement posted on an Islamist website forum today, the caliph of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISC), Abu Baker al-Baghdadi al-Husseini al-Qurashi, mourned bin Laden’s death.

“I tell our brothers in al Qaeda organisation and on the top of them Sheikh Mujahid Ayman al-Zawahri ... be merry, you have faithful men in the Islamic State of Iraq who are following the right path and will not quit or be forced out,” he said in the statement.



“I swear by God, blood for blood and destruction for destruction,” he said in a clear reference to revenge attacks for bin Laden’s death.

Zawahri, an Egyptian-born doctor who met bin Laden in the mid-1980s when both were in Pakistan to support guerrillas fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, has long been considered al Qaeda’s deputy leader.

ISI is believed by intelligence analysts to have been created by al Qaeda in Iraq as a local umbrella group for insurgent organisations.

Iraq’s army and police have been on high alert for revenge attacks since bin Laden’s killing by US commandos in Pakistan. Iraq became an important battlefield for al Qaeda after the US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.

Security officials have said bin Laden’s death earlier this month may have little practical impact on al Qaeda in Iraq, a weakened but still deadly Islamist insurgency that could launch strikes for the next decade.

Al Qaeda in Iraq may seek immediate revenge for the killing of the world’s most wanted man but in the long run probably will be more a thorn in the Iraqi government’s side than a destabilising force, security officials said.

On Thursday, a car bomber killed more than 20 people and wounded 80 at a police building in the mainly Shi’ite city of Hilla.

Osama Bin Laden evade capture for 6 years the charade that let him evade capture for six years

# ISI official: 'We were looking in the wrong areas. It's an intelligence failure'
# Local children received $2-3 if their ball entered the compound
# Visiting doctor asked to leave after commenting on SUVs
# CIA chief feared telling Pakistanis would 'alert targets'
# Full story of how courier unwittingly led commandos to Bin Laden's lair
# David Cameron: 'We should be tough in asking the big questions'
# Prime Minister hints at swifter troop exit from Afghanistan

Blackened: A shelter in the compound appears to have take some of the fire as U.S. forces went into to grab Bin Laden

Sightseeing: Local residents gather outside and atop the walls Bin Laden's home while the security services turn a blind eye

Pakistan anger: Demonstrators in Karachi chant slogans condemning the killing of Osama bin Laden as they gather to offer funeral prayers

Doubts: CIA Director Leon Panetta said concerns over the reliability of Pakistani intelligence led his agency not to inform them in advance of the raid

Surrounded: The three-storey lair, guarded left by security officials, is encircled by walls 12ft high topped with three lines of barbed wire. Local workers were seen carrying out running repairs after the raid

Osama bunny-laden: These are the two rabbits which Zarar Ahmed claimed were given to him by the Al Qaeda chief

It's a good day: President Barack Obama, centre, holds a Cabinet meeting with, from left, Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and Trade Representative Ronald Kirk, in the Cabinet Room of the White House, in Washington, DC today

The wall encircles the whole compound which was raided in 2003 by security services searching for an Al Qaeda Faraj Al-Libi

Seen better days: Pakistani soldiers in a jeep pass by the compound, close to a military academy and less than 70 miles from capital Islamabad

Close up: The compound in the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Osama Bin Laden was killed in the early hours of Monday morning

Young guest: Zarar Ahmed, 12, points at Bin Laden's high-security compound which he lives near to and claims to have visited several times

In 2004, a captured Al Qaeda operative told U.S. intelligence that the courier Sheikh Abu Ahmed was close to operational commander Faraj Al-Libi, left, who had replaced Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, right. 

Details of the comfortable family life Osama Bin Laden enjoyed under the noses of the Pakistani security services emerged last night.

Neighbours’ children were invited into the terror mastermind’s hideout to play with pet rabbits, while his children attended a nearby school.

Even the name of the million-dollar house was a huge clue – it was called ‘Waziristan Mansion’, after the tribal area of mountainous Pakistan where Bin Laden fled in the wake of the 9/11 outrage.

Until he was finally hunted down and killed by U.S. special forces on Sunday, the world’s most wanted man lived in the garrison city of Abbottabad with his various wives for an incredible six years.





Further embarrassment followed yesterday when the BBC interviewed a 12-year-old boy who said he used to visit the building where Bin Laden had died and had met the Al Qaeda leader's family.

'I used to go to their house. He had two wives, one spoke Arabic, and the other one spoke Urdu. They had three children, a girl and two boys. They gave me two rabbits. They had installed a camera at the outer gate so they could see people before they entered the house,' Zarar Ahmed said.

It also emerged today that other local children thought something may be amiss - and regularly made a profit from the presence of the terrorist mastermind.

'If a football went into bin Laden's compound the children would not be allowed to get it,' said local ice cream vendor Tanvir Ahmed.

'They were given money instead; 100-150 rupees ($2-$3) per ball.'

Another youngster, named Daniel Alvi, revealed that he regularly saw a man in a red Suzuki van drive into the compound with a live goat, while the milkman only delivered outside the security gate and never rang the doorbell.

According to locals, the vehicles would travel regularly to the tribal areas where Al Qaeda’s trainers and planners operate

'There was a rumour in the neighbourhood that the man who lived there was Baitullah Mehsud's nephew,' said Daniel, referring to the late chief of the Pakistani Taliban.

'I went over on two occasions after I hit the ball over there and there was no one there. I think there was a $20 million reward for bin Laden, but I never imagined it was him.'

Two brothers from the compound visited the shops twice a week to buy provisions. Their regular purchases included large quantities of vegetables, fruit, rice, biscuits, jam, honey, ice cream and ice lollies for the children.

Shopkeeper Raja Shuja said yesterday: ‘The brothers were always polite and always asked questions about what was happening locally and whether there had been strange visitors to the area.’

A newspaper hawker described how he delivered newspapers to the compound every day and at the end of each month his bill was promptly paid, always by the same man.

Despite this, the compound, which was number 25 in the street, did not have most basic conveniences such as a satellite dish, phone line or air conditioning.

Residents in the town were already making trips to the compound to examine what had happened and gathered atop the 15-foot walls - which previously would have resulted in a person being asked to move on should anyone dare to lean on them.

They also picked up pieces of the helicopter which crashed during the daring raid.

The compound was also close to a local school and at least two other families lived with Bin Laden.

At any one time there were up to 20 children within the compound, some attending the local Iqra religious school.

Another local resident, Sher Mohammed Khan, said his sister went to the house to administer a polio vaccination as part of a government-backed drive.

When she remarked on all the expensive SUVs inside the compound, a man immediately asked her to leave, but not before taking the vaccine to apparently administer to the children inside.

Another doctor was also believed to have made frequent visits to give Bin Laden dialysis for his kidney condition.

Bin Laden, 54, is believed to have lived in the fortified mansion less than a mile from a military academy just 62 miles from the capital Islamabad for six years.

The family lived on the second and third floor, and a 7ft wall had been built to conceal his 6ft 6in figure when he was taking fresh air.

A total of four people died in the raid but those who survived the attack included his wife, daughter and eight to nine other children who did not belong to Bin Laden. They were tied up and taken away by the troops.

U.S. officials believe that Bin Laden had lived within the blacked-out for up to six years. He had been living in Afghanistan before a 2001 U.S. invasion helped topple its Taliban regime.

All of the above has left the Pakistani government facing difficult questions from experts who failed to accept nobody in the country knew of his whereabouts.

Pakistan's interior minister Rehman Malik had told visiting U.S. politicians in 2009 that Bin Laden was much more likely to be hiding out in Yemen or Saudi Arabia.

He even suggested he might have been killed in airstrikes in the Tora Bora cave complex shortly after 9/11.

Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari used an article in the Washington Post to refute the allegations.

He said: 'Some in the U.S. press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing,

'Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn't reflect fact,' said Mr Zardari.

And today, one of the country's top military officials has admitted the oversight was down to errors within the organisation.

'We had been looking for him in no-go areas, unaware that he was living so close to an installation of ours,' said the official at a briefing for journalists in Islamabad. 'Yes, it is an intelligence failure.'

'It is an embarrassment for the ISI, we're good, but we're not God.'

The CIA doubts over the reliability of Pakistani intelligence came to the fore today when its director Leon Panetta admitted they were concerned enough not to inform them in advance of the raid.

In an interview with Time magazine, Panetta said his aides had 60 to 80 per cent confidence that Bin Laden was in the compound - and had they told them it could have jeopardised the operation and targets been alerted.

Panetta said he told President Barack Obama: 'If I thought delaying this could in fact produce better intelligence that would be one thing. But because of the nature of the security at the compound, we're probably at a point where we've got the best intelligence we can get.'

He also revealed that U.S. forces had gathered an 'impressive amount' of material, including computers and electronics following the raid.

A new task force has now been set up by Panetta to look into all the material gathered.

One British security source said: ‘It is entirely inconceivable that Bin Laden had no support and was able to live in the way that he was without some in Pakistan knowing he was there and what he was doing.’

The ISI had raided the compound once before in 2003 - when it was believed Abu Faraj al-Libi, was there.

But the compound 'was not on our radar' since then, the official said.

The intelligence services therefore may never have caught Bin Laden had it not been for his most trusted courier - a Kuwaiti-born man named Sheikh Abu Ahmed.

The shadowy figure was identified after Al Qaeda commanders held at Guantanamo Bay admitted they knew him - and that he had connections to the Saudi Arabian-born leader.

Once U.S. security forces had that information, they flooded Pakistan with agents desperate to pick up a trace of him, he would lead them to the lair of the world's most wanted man.

But the confessions were only the start of an extraordinary manhunt which stretched from the prison camp in Cuba to Peshawar in Pakistan and finally ended in the deadly shootout.

For many years, Ahmed was only known by his 'nom de guerre', Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.

The first indications about his significance came from CIA detainees shortly after the 9/11 terror attacks.

They identified him as one of Bin Laden's couriers, an aide the terror chief trusted with his life. But details were scant and agents quickly found the trail went cold.

It was not until 2004, when Al Qaeda operative Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq, that the CIA began to make progress.

Ghul told the intelligence service that al-Kuwaiti was a courier and that he was close to Faraj al-Libi, Al Qaeda's operational commander, who replaced Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.The pace of the pursuit then picked when U.S. soldiers captured al-Libi.

Under CIA interrogation, al-Libi admitted that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed, he received the word through a courier.

But he made up a name for the courier and denied knowing al-Kuwaiti, a denial that was so adamant and unbelievable that the CIA took it as a lie.


Finally, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed himself admitted that he knew the courier. Held at Guantanamo Bay, he had been waterboarded 183 times without identifiying Ahmed.

It was only later under conventional interrogation techniques that he admitted he knew him - though he still did not surrender a full name or where the courier could be found.

The CIA were then convinced that if they found Abu Ahmed they would find Bin Laden.

Scores of agents scoured Pakistan and Afghanistan for the merest whisper of Ahmed's whereabouts.

When Ahmed was finally tracked down, he was driving a white Suzuki in Peshawar, a frontier town with a high population of Al Qaeda sympathisers.

CIA agents followed him to a compound in the northeast Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where al-Libi had once lived. It had 18ft high walls, barbed wire, and no telephone or internet connections.

Without confirmation and with little to go on, the CIA became convinced they had finally found the world's most wanted man.

Despite doubts about Pakistanti trustworthiness, British Prime Minister David Cameron have his backing to Mr Zardari today.

He said that the mission that led to the death of Osama bin Laden was 'justified, lawful and right' and represented a 'massive step forward' in tackling terrorism.

'There are lots of questions that need to be asked. And we should be tough in asking those questions,' he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

'But we should deal with what we do know. And we do know that the Pakistan political leadership is fighting terrorism, we do know that country has suffered.

'We should work with those forces in Pakistan that want us to combat terrorism and extremism and make democracy take hold in that country. That is in our national interest.

'We could go down the other route of just having a flaming great row with Pakistan over this. I think that would achieve nothing.'

Mr Cameron, who sparked a major row with Pakistan earlier this year when he accused the regime of looking 'both ways' on terrorism, said 'the world is incomparably a better place without' Bin Laden.

But as Pakistan hits back over the criticism, Zadari and his Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani have already made clear their strong feelings on the mission in a telephone conversation with Cameron yesterday.

'As far as they were concerned, Bin Laden was a foreigner who had no business being in Pakistan, who brought nothing but misery to their country,' said Mr Cameron.