Wife may tell of what really happened
Source: Agencies |
May 7, 2011, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
ONE of the three wives living with Osama bin Laden told Pakistani interrogators she had been staying in the al-Qaida chief's hideout for six years, and could be a key source of information about how he avoided capture for so long, a Pakistani intelligence official said yesterday.
Bin Laden's wife, identified as Yemeni-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, said she never left the upper floors of the house the entire time she was there.
She and bin Laden's other two wives are being interrogated in Pakistan after they were taken into custody following Monday's American raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. Pakistani authorities are also holding eight or nine children found there after the US commandos left.
Given shifting and incomplete accounts from US officials about what happened during the raid, testimony from bin Laden's wives may be significant in unveiling details about the operation.
Their accounts will also help show how bin Laden spent his time and managed to stay hidden, living in a large house close to a military academy in a garrison town, a two-and-a-half-hour drive from the capital, Islamabad.
A Pakistani official said CIA officers had not been given access to the women in custody.
Already-tense military and intelligence relations between the United States and Pakistan have been further strained after the helicopter-borne raid, which many Pakistanis see as a violation of their country's sovereignty.
The Pakistani intelligence official did not say whether the Yemeni wife had said that bin Laden was also living there since 2006.
"We are still getting information from them," he said.
Another security official said the wife was shot in the leg during the operation, and did not witness her husband being killed.
He also said one of bin Laden's eldest daughters had said she witnessed her father's death.
Bin Laden's wife, identified as Yemeni-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, said she never left the upper floors of the house the entire time she was there.
She and bin Laden's other two wives are being interrogated in Pakistan after they were taken into custody following Monday's American raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. Pakistani authorities are also holding eight or nine children found there after the US commandos left.
Given shifting and incomplete accounts from US officials about what happened during the raid, testimony from bin Laden's wives may be significant in unveiling details about the operation.
Their accounts will also help show how bin Laden spent his time and managed to stay hidden, living in a large house close to a military academy in a garrison town, a two-and-a-half-hour drive from the capital, Islamabad.
A Pakistani official said CIA officers had not been given access to the women in custody.
Already-tense military and intelligence relations between the United States and Pakistan have been further strained after the helicopter-borne raid, which many Pakistanis see as a violation of their country's sovereignty.
The Pakistani intelligence official did not say whether the Yemeni wife had said that bin Laden was also living there since 2006.
"We are still getting information from them," he said.
Another security official said the wife was shot in the leg during the operation, and did not witness her husband being killed.
He also said one of bin Laden's eldest daughters had said she witnessed her father's death.
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