Rumors of 'silent coup' as Pakistan President Zardari heads to hospital

Aides to President Zardari rubbish the rumors, which have quickly gained credibility among the Pakistani public because of the perception that this government is on its last legs.

Pakistan president in Dubai for heart treatment, condition stable

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is in Dubai for treatment for a heart condition, the government said today, with one source saying he had suffered a minor heart attack and fuelling speculation that the unpopular leader may resign.

The statement from the prime minister’s office said Zardari went to a Dubai hospital at the insistence of his children, who live there. It contradicted earlier reports from Zardari’s own office that the tests were scheduled and routine.

Pakistan says NATO ignored its pleas during attack

The NATO airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers lasted almost two hours and continued even after Pakistani commanders had pleaded with coalition forces to stop, the army claimed Monday in charges that could further inflame anger ....

US drone strikes must stop, says American lawyer

A Global Hawk UAV is seen flying over an unidentified location in this US Air Force image.




Prominent international human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith was impressed by the 16-year-old boy who wanted to draw attention to civilian deaths caused by US drone strikes in Pakistan.

Tariq Aziz had volunteered to take pictures of people killed by the remotely piloted aircraft to help Stafford Smith highlight what he calls illegal killings.

Three days later, on October 31, he and his 12-year-old cousin were themselves killed by a drone missile strike in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, Stafford Smith said.

For the veteran lawyer, the deaths highlighted major flaws in the CIA-run drone campaign, which US officials say is invaluable in the war on militants.

“What they did to Tariq was absolutely disgusting,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview.



Stafford Smith made his name defending death row inmates in the United States and prisoners at the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He considers the drones as “scandalous” as the secret US bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.

Eighty Pakistani tribesmen, including Aziz, recently met Stafford Smith and other Western lawyers for the first time, in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, to complain about the drones.

The United States has sharply stepped up the number of drone attacks in Pakistan’s unruly ethnic Pashtun areas in the northwest, along the border with Afghanistan.

In 2009, when President Barack Obama took office, there were 53 strikes, compared with 42 over the previous four years. In 2010, that number jumped to 118, followed by 68 this year, according to the New America Foundation.

The think tank’s statistics raise doubts about the success of the drones. It estimates as many as 471 civilians were killed by drone strikes in Pakistan between 2004-2011, a 20 per cent non-militant fatality rate.

US officials point to the deaths of senior al Qaeda and Taliban figures as proof the drones are highly effective, and no American troops are needed on the ground.

Missile-armed drones are playing a greater role than ever in US counterterrorism operations, as Obama winds down land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Washington’s focus expands to militant havens in countries such as Pakistan.

“Science fiction nightmare”

Stafford Smith says the strategy will cause more civilian deaths and create additional enemies for the United States.

“When you have warfare with no political costs at all, it becomes much too easy to resort to violence,” he said, adding his goal was to raise international awareness about the suffering caused by drone strikes.

“What we are seeing in Waziristan is a process that is alienating the population just as napalm in Vietnam did and it’s achieving very little benefit.”

Stafford Smith drew parallels between Guantanamo and the drone campaign in Pakistan, arguing both detentions and strikes were often based on dubious intelligence.

He suspects the death of Aziz was a prime example of that.

“We as America offer large bounties to different informants and these informants would sell their own mothers,” said Stafford Smith, 52, a dual US-British citizen who is the director of Reprieve, an organisation that advocates for prisoners’ rights.

“We don’t have proof but this (Aziz’s death) was the result of some Pakistani informants who want to show their paymasters they are doing their jobs. So they make up a story and a poor kid dies.”

Drone “pilots” based in the United States move joy sticks around as they watch live video feeds of militants, who are killed with the push of a button.

“We keep talking our way into a system of warfare that was in our science fiction nightmare 30 years ago and we really need to have an open debate on it,” said Stafford Smith.

He faces an uphill battle. US policy makers are encouraged by drone operations like the one that killed US-born militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in September.

But Stafford Smith believes “justice” will prevail.

“In the early days of Guantanamo Bay people said ‘no one will pay attention’. It was difficult,” he said.

“I have no doubt the American people and everyone else will recognise what’s going on here and put an end to it.”

Gunmen storm Pakistan’s naval aviation base

Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik speaks to the media outside Mehran naval aviation base, which was attacked by militants, in Karachi May 23, 2011.


More than a dozen gunmen attacked Pakistan’s naval aviation base yesterday, blowing up an aircraft and fighting pitched gunbattles inside one of the country’s most heavily guarded military installations.

Officials said up to four people had been killed in the attack on PNS Mehran in the southern city of Karachi and that three hangars housing aircraft had been targeted. Nine explosions were reported from the base, with jet fuel tanks possibly catching fire and exploding.








“They were carrying guns, rocket propelled grenades (LPG) and hand grenades. They hit the aircraft with an RPG,” said Navy spokesman Commander Salman Ali. The attackers numbered up to 15.

“They are still inside the base,” he said.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack. But Taliban militants, who have vowed to avenge the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by US special forces, have carried out several attacks since his death on May 2. The government also faces a campaign by the Pakistani Taliban.

The assault started at approximately 10:30pm yesterday and it took about four hours before most of the fires were extinguished and the shooting had largely stopped. Security forces then swept the base in search of the assailants. The Karachi attack evoked memories of an assault on Pakistan’s army headquarters in the town of Rawalpindi in 2009, and revived concerns that even the most well-guarded installations in the country remain vulnerable to militants.

A spokesman said one P-3C Orion, a maritime patrol aircraft, had been destroyed and that intermittent gunfire was continuing.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the militants had attacked from the rear of the base. “We have been able to confine them to one building and an operation is underway either to kill or capture them.”

Media reports said the attackers had made their way in through a sewer line, but that was not confirmed. The military’s goal is to capture as many of the attackers alive as possible, Pakistan television reported.

Pakistani military and paramilitary reinforcements poured in after the attack began, with four vehicles carrying about 10 troops each moving into the base.

Ali said two people — one naval officer and one firefighter — were killed. Two others were wounded. Other officials said four people had been killed.

Ali said no foreign national was on the base.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned the attack:

“Such a cowardly act of terror could not deter the commitment of the government and people of Pakistan to fight terrorism,” he said in statement.

WAVE OF BOMBINGS

Pakistan has faced a wave of bombings and gun assaults over the last few years, some of them claimed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban.

Others have been blamed on al Qaeda-linked militant groups once nurtured by the Pakistani military which have since slipped out of control.

The discovery that bin Laden was living in the garrison town of Abbottabad, not far from the Pakistan Military Academy, has revived suspicions that militants may be receiving help from some people within the security establishment.

Pakistan and the United States say the senior leadership in the country did not know bin Laden was in Abbottabad.

Washington sees nuclear-armed Pakistan as a key, if troubled, ally in the region essential to its attempts to root out militant forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

“We condemn the attack and our sympathies are with the families of those injured or killed,” the White House in Washington said in a statement.

On April 28, suspected militants detonated a roadside bomb in Karachi, killing four members of the navy, the third attack on the navy in a week.

The attack came two days after two bombs hit buses carrying navy personnel, killing four people and wounding 56. Taliban insurgents took responsibility for the twin attacks.

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.

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

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.

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.

China hails death of bin Laden, defends partner Pakistan

A vendor sells masks of al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden in Nanjing, Jiangsu province May 3, 2011. China hailed on Tuesday the death of bin Laden in a US raid while defending its regional partner Pakistan against accusations it had done too little against terror threats

China hailed today the death of Osama bin Laden in a US raid while defending its regional partner Pakistan against accusations it had done too little against terror threats.

Beijing and Washington have gone through bouts of friction over Taiwan and Tibet, regional security and most recently China’s clampdown on dissent and human rights activists.

China showed no appetite, however, for turning the US raid that killed bin Laden on Pakistani soil into a point of dispute.





“We have noted the announcement and believe that this is a major event and a positive development in the international struggle against terrorism,” Jiang said about the White House’s announcement that bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader who orchestrated the September 11 attacks, was killed in a US raid, Chinese newspapers reported today.

Next week, officials from China and the United States meet in Washington for a Strategic and Economic Dialogue, annual talks to help manage disagreements over trade, currency issues and foreign policy.

But the Chinese spokeswoman, Jiang, made a point of standing by Pakistan, Beijing’s closest partner in south Asia, which has faced criticism from US lawmakers and others that the discovery of bin Laden hiding so close to Islamabad showed Pakistan had done too little to fight terror threats.

That criticism has raised the possibility of a widened rift between Washington and Islamabad.

“Pakistan stands at the forefront of the international struggle against terrorism,” Jiang told a regular news conference, after her initial statement on bin Laden had appeared.

“The Pakistani government’s determination to fight terrorism is staunch and its actions have been vigorous. Pakistan has made important contributions to the international struggle against terror,” she said.

“China will continue staunchly supporting Pakistan developing and implementing its own anti-terror strategy based on its own national conditions.”

China has said separatist militants in its far west Xinjiang region have been supported by foreign extremists.

Critics of Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang, which shares a border with Pakistan, have said it has exaggerated those links to justify political and religious controls on the restive Muslim Uighur minority.

China and Pakistan call each other “all-weather friends” and their close ties have been underpinned by longstanding wariness of their common neighbour, India, and a desire to hedge against US influence in the region.

China is building nuclear reactors in Pakistan despite grave misgivings from other countries, which fear proliferation and safety risks.

Bin Laden’s death and any rift between the United States and Pakistan will not affect Beijing’s policies towards Islamabad, said Guo Xian’gang, vice president of the China Institute of International Studies, a government think tank.

“China’s role in Pakistan won’t change because of this. In the eyes of the Chinese government and people, bin Laden was a terrorist ringleader,” said Guo. “But I do think we have to understand that his death does not mean the death of al Qaeda – there’s still the real risk of counter-attacks.”

China is a member of the 15-nation UN Security Council that yesterday welcomed the news “that Osama bin Laden will never again be able to perpetrate such acts of terrorism”.

“China has always opposed all forms of terrorism,” said Jiang. “China advocates that the international community enhance international anti-terror cooperation and adopt comprehensive steps to treat both the symptoms and the root causes of terrorism.”

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.

Dramatic reconstruction of how hit squad finally took out Bin Laden

# Luxury compound was only 60 miles from Pakistan capital Islamabad
# 40 minute shootout put an end to decade long hunt for terror chief
# Bin Laden refused to surrender and was eventually shot in the head
# Body had to be carried away on foot after U.S. helicopter broke down



Almost ten years after the horror of 9/11, Osama bin Laden must have thought he was safe.

He had moved from the remote, barren mountains on Afghanistan’s inhospitable border to a comfortable $1million mansion in one of Pakistan’s most picturesque and affluent cities.

Abbottabad - named after James Abbott, the British major who founded the town in 1853 - has such a pleasant climate that it is a major hub for tourists visiting the region.

And the former home of the Gurkhas is still a major military base so locals have no reason to feel threatened.

Behind the walls of his sprawling compound about 60 miles north of the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, Bin Laden had every reason to believe he was way beyond the searching eyes of the Americans he had taunted for so long.

His family was with him and a parade of couriers would bring him everything he needed from the city outside of more than a million people.

So confident was he that the huge three-storey house he was living in was eight times larger than most other homes in the area, hardly a low-profile hideaway for the most wanted man in the world.

But, according to U.S. intelligence sources, Bin Laden was taken completely by surprise by the special forces who had spent the best part of a decade stalking him.

He had, after all, survived two wars launched with the aim of capturing him and his followers.

The last time the Americans and the British got as close - a few months after the attacks on New York and Washington - Bin Laden managed to elude them on horseback through the caves and gullies in the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

For most of the past ten years, Bin Laden lived up to the nickname of 'Elvis' he had been given by the CIA because there had been so many bogus and fanciful sightings.

But as long ago as last August, President Obama was told in an intelligence briefing that there was a possible lead that Bin Laden was hiding in plain sight in Abbottabad.

It took eight months for U.S. and Pakistani agents to confirm for certain that the information was accurate.

Wanted man: Nearly 10 years after the 9/11 atrocities, a carefully planned U.S. operation led to Osama bin Laden being shot dead in Pakistan

Mr Obama and his national security chiefs wanted to be absolutely sure because the tip seemed so implausible.

After so many dead end enquiries, it was hard to believe that the elusive Al Qaeda chief would be so brazen as to live in a town favoured as a retirement spot for Pakistan’s military and society elite.

The ten-foot walls and heavy security surrounding the compound made verification all the more difficult.

But a week ago, Mr Obama was given concrete photographic proof that Bin Laden was there.

After several run-throughs and the diplomatic blessing of the Pakistani government, a small special forces team of U.S. Navy Seals landed in the compound grounds yesterday with the explicit instruction - get Osama bin Laden, dead or alive.

The raid on the compound, which was just 100 yards from a Pakistani military academy, was launched at about 1.15am in the morning, according to witnesses. Four U.S. helicopters took off from the Ghazi air base in northwest Pakistan.

Bin Laden's guards opened fire from the roof and one of the helicopters crashed.

During an operation that took just 40 minutes from start to finish, Bin Laden was shot in the head in a firefight as he tried to evade capture. Three of his men were also killed along with a woman they tried to use as a human shield. One of Bin Laden's eleven sons was said to be among the dead.

No Americans were hurt in the mission, but it didn’t go without a hitch.

The helicopter they used to breach the mansion walls suffered a mechanical breakdown and couldn’t fly the soldiers out.

The Seals burned the helicopter and had to carry Bin Laden’s body out on foot, an ignominious ending for the terrorist chief after one of history’s biggest manhunts.

It was also a major triumph for a special CIA and special forces team of up to 100 whose mission since September 11 has been to find and kill Bin Laden.

For years, they have had to brave the jibes aimed at both the Bush and Obama administrations over the failure to track down the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

They worked closely with the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service for whom many CIA officials have a deep mistrust because of the agency’s traditional ties with the Pashtuns of Waziristan, who were believed to have harboured Bin Laden for some of his years on the run.

After he evaded capture in mid-December 1991, there were precious few credible leads of his wherebouts.

But about four years ago, CIA agents managed to identify one of his most trusted couriers after a detainee at Guantanamo Bay gave them his nickname.

It took another two years for them to discover the area where the courier and his brother were operating.

By January this year, they found out that the courier and his brother were living in a mansion that appeared to be much larger than anything they could afford.

Suspicions were raised further by the thick walls around the compound.

While other homes in the area put rubbish out to be collected, the trash was burned in the ground of the mansion, which did not have a telephone or internet service.

By February, U.S. intelligence officials were confident that Bin Laden and his family were living there and by March, Mr Obama was convening top secret meeting with his senior security staff.

The CIA believe that for many years before settling in Abbottabad, Bin Laden moved from village to village in Waziristan. He communicated only about once a month and never used a telephone.

When he reached a village with his bodyguards he would request a meeting with the local tribal leader and a substantial bribe would be paid.

Bin Laden would then be the guest of the village, where under Pashtun custom, he must be protected.

The main obstacle in finding him was that even if someone wanted to betray him and collect the $25 million reward - there was no one to turn to.

The local police would know Bin Laden was there and if anyone tried to report his presence they would quite likely be killed.

One local mullah from Waziristan agreed to send information about Bin Laden’s movements and his beheaded body was found several weeks later with a message that his was the fate of spies.

While Operation Enduring Freedom was successful in liberating Afghanistan from Taliban control after 9/11, there was no doubt that the real prize was Bin Laden himself.

But the Al Qaeda chief had chosen his first redoubt with care. For several years before 2001, he had developed an intricate network of caves and dwellings 14,000ft up in the settlement known as Tora Bora.

The impenetrable mountains not only made it difficult for anybody to track him, they were also just a few miles from Pakistan, allowing him to escape easily as western troops moved in.

The commander of one U.S. military force told the ’60 Minutes’ news show how soldiers under his command found Bin Laden - but let him slip through their fingers.

The commander, calling himself Dalton Fury, expressed his frustration at having known where Bin Laden was, but feeling he was powerless to do anything.

At one point, he said, his forces were closing in on Bin Laden's men - but he decided to abort the mission because he did not have support from Afghan troops.

And in another incident Delta soldiers actually saw a tall man dressed in camouflage that they believed was Bin Laden - only to have the Al Qaeda leader escape their bombing campaign in the mountains.

Fury talked about a book he has written entitled 'Kill Bin Laden', detailing his memories of the campaign in Tora Bora in 2001.

'Our job was to go find him, capture or kill him, and we knew the writing on the wall was to kill him because nobody wanted to bring Osama bin Laden back to stand trial in the United States somewhere,' the mission commander told his interviewer.

He said the administration's strategy was to let Afghans do most of the fighting, however.

Using radio intercepts and other intelligence, he said, the CIA pinpointed Bin Laden's location in the Tora Bora mountains near Pakistan.

Fury's Delta team joined the CIA and Afghan fighters and piled into pick-up trucks. He claimed their orders were to kill Bin Laden and leave the body with the Afghans, keeping an Afghan face on the war.

However an audacious plan to come at Bin Laden from the back door was vetoed higher-up - Fury claimed he was never sure who.

And a second plan to drop hundreds of landmines over any escape route into Pakistan was also vetoed, with Fury claiming he had no idea why.

The only option left was a frontal assault. Fury said he had 50 men in Delta force up against Bin Laden's 1,000 - support from the Afghan forces was needed.

But, he claimed, many of the Afghan soldiers were not on board - seeing Bin Laden as a hero.

One night - alone without his Afghan allies - Fury said he was told Bin Laden was two kilometres away. Faced with overwhelming odds, he elected to stay away.

But the decision always nagged him. He wrote in his book: 'My decision to abort that effort to kill or capture Bin Laden when we might have been within 2,000 metres of him, about 2,000 yards, still bothers me.

'It leaves me with a feeling of somehow letting down our nation at a critical time.' But, he added, it wasn't worth the risk.

Fury had a second chance: Later, a Delta force named Jackal radioed they had Bin Laden in sight.

He wrote: 'The operation Jackal team observed 50 men moving into a cave that they hadn't seen before. The mujahideen said they saw an individual, a taller fellow, wearing a camouflage jacket. Everybody put two and two together, "okay, that's got to be Osama bin Laden egressing from the battlefield".

'They called up every available bomb in the air, took control of the airspace. And they dropped several hours of bombs on the cave he went into.

'We believe, it was our opinion at the time, that he died inside that cave.'

Later, however, he was proven wrong, when American forces were unable to find Bin Laden's body and the Al Qaeda leader began releasing radio and video footage again.

Fury told 60 Minutes he believes he knows what happened.

He said Bin Laden was wounded in the shoulder by shrapnel from an American bomb, and was then hidden a town next to the Al Qaeda cemetery.

'We believe a gentleman brought him in - a gentleman, him and his family were supporting Al Qaeda during the battle. They were providing food, ammo, water.

'We think he went to that house, received medical attention for a few days then, and then we believe they put him in a vehicle and moved him back

 Stormed: An image from Geo TV shows flames from the compound where terror mastermind Bin Laden was shot

 Mission: U.S. President Barack Obama announces that America's most wanted man is dead

 Celebration: The killing of Bin Laden has been greeted with euphoria in the U.S.

 Deserted: Nestled among trees and in the shadow of Pakistan's mountains, Bin Laden's hideaway stands empty today after a helicopter raid by U.S. troops that killed the terror chief yesterday

 Hideout: A large sheet covers the U.S. helicopter that crashed in the grounds of the compound where Bin Laden lived with his youngest wife and his trusted aides

Near miss: One of the U.S. helicopters crashed over a wall within the compound after coming under heavy fire from rocket propelled grenades. However, all special forces troops escaped safely

Clean up: The remains of the U.S. helicopter that crashed during the mission are driven away on a tractor through Abbottabad today