Islamabad/New York, May 2
In what could come as a big embarrassment for Pakistan's powerful army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden was killed just yards from a military compound that he visited last month where he had famously claimed that his forces had broken the "terrorist backbone". “The terrorist backbone has been broken and Inshaallah we will soon prevail,” Kayani said in his address at a passing out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul on April 23 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

Kayani's comments had come days after Admiral Mike Mullen, America's top military official, warned that the ISI's longstanding links with the Haqqani militant network are at the core of Pakistan's strained and problematic relations with the United States.

Since bin Laden was shot dead in a house just yards from the military academy in Abbottabad town, it raises questions whether ISI knew about his whereabouts. The dreaded terror threat was living almost next door to Pakistan's Kakul Military Academy, which is home to army's three regiments and far away from remote mountain caves where most intelligence estimates put him in recent years.

US authorities had been keeping a watch over the compound since August. The killing of Osama is bound to further inflame tension between the US and Pakistan and raise significant questions about whether elements of the Pakistani spy agency knew the whereabouts of the leader of Al-Qaida, the New York Times said. For nearly a decade, the US has paid Pakistan more than $1 billion a year for counter-terrorism operations whose chief aim was the killing or capture of bin Laden, who slipped across the border from Afghanistan after the American invasion.

“The circumstance of bin Laden's death may not only jeopardise that aid, but will also no doubt deepen suspicions that Pakistan has played a double game, and perhaps even knowingly harboured the Qaida leader,” the daily said.

It said Laden was not killed in the remote and relatively lawless tribal regions, where the US has run a campaign of drone attacks aimed at Al- Qaida militants, where he was long rumoured to have taken refuge, and where the reach of the Pakistani government is limited. "Rather, he was killed in Abbottabad, a city of about 500,000, in a large and highly secured compound that, a resident of the city said, sits virtually adjacent to the grounds of a military academy.

“In an ironic twist, the academy was visited just last month by the Pakistani military chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani...” It said the city hosts numerous Pakistani forces - three different regiments, and a unit of the Army Medical Corps. Kayani appears to be less enthusiastic about the alliance with the US because he is under pressure from his senior generals, according to Pakistani officials who keep in touch with the military.

“About half of the 11 corps commanders, the generals who make up the senior command, have questioned the wisdom of the alliance,” according to the officials. “Some of the younger mid-ranking officers - majors and captains - seem to have more sympathy for the militants than for the idea of fighting them,” the daily quoted the officials as saying.

It added another major irritant has been the failure of the Pakistani military to heed the calls of the US to squash the Al-Qaida-linked militants known as the Haqqani network, which is given a free hand by the Pakistanis in North Waziristan. — PTI

Islamabad, May 2
Pakistan today appeared to have distanced itself from the operation that killed Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, with authorities here saying it was a US intelligence-driven operation.

But an official statement said his death was a “major setback to terrorist organisations” across the world.

“In an intelligence-driven operation, Osama bin Laden was killed in the surroundings of Abbottabad in the early hours of this morning,” Foreign Office spokesperson Tehmina Janjua said.

“This operation was conducted by the US forces in accordance with declared US policy that Osama bin Laden will be eliminated in a direct action by the US forces, wherever found in the world,” she said.

In a statement issued hours after US President Barack Obama announced the killing of bin Laden in a television address, Janjua said the Al-Qaida chief’s death “illustrates the resolve of the international community, including Pakistan to fight and eliminate terrorism. It constitutes a major setback to terrorist organisations around the world.”

“It is Pakistan’s stated policy that it will not allow its soil to be used in terrorist attacks against any country. Pakistan's political leadership, parliament, state institutions and the whole nation are fully united in their resolve to eliminate terrorism,” Janjua said.

President Obama telephoned President Asif Ali Zardari on “the successful US operation which resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden,” she said. The spokesperson contended that Pakistan had “played a significant role in efforts to eliminate terrorism”.

She said Pakistan had “extremely effective intelligence sharing arrangements with several intelligence agencies, including that of the US” and would continue to support international efforts against terrorism.

“Al-Qaida had declared war on Pakistan. Scores of Al-Qaida sponsored terrorist attacks resulted in deaths of thousands of innocent Pakistani men, women and children. Almost 30,000 Pakistani civilians lost their lives in terrorist attacks in the last few years," Janjua said.

Over 5,000 Pakistani security and armed forces officials have died in the campaign against Al-Qaida, other terrorist groups and their affiliates. — PTI

London, May 2
Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf today said the US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil was a “violation of our sovereignty” and felt the Gilani government should have been kept in the loop.

Musharraf, who has repeatedly denied the US intelligence that the world's most wanted terrorist was inside Pakistan, said he was surprised how he was found in a mansion in Abbottabad, 120 km from the capital Islamabad. The former Pakistan Army Chief, who was the President during the 2001 terror strike in US masterminded by bin Laden, however said the killing of Al-Qaida boss was a “victory” for the people of Pakistan and all peace-loving people of the world.

I don't think there is any local official collusion (with bin Laden). That possibility is not there but, some local people colluding is a possibility. The battle has been won but the war continues. — Pervez Musharraf

“American troops coming across the border and taking action in one of our towns that is Abbotabad is not acceptable to the people of Pakistan and is a violation of our sovereignty, our sensitivity,” he told TV channels. “Foreign troops crossing the border into Pakistan will not be liked by the people of Pakistan. US forces should not have crossed over into Pakistan,” he said, adding “handling and execution of the operation (by US forces) is not correct. The Pakistani Government should have been kept in the loop.” In Musharraf's view, it is this lack of trust that is “very bad” because the two countries are fighting the same enemy.

“We are fighting the Al-Qaida, we have to fight the Taliban and we have to be together strategically. I know that Pakistan is totally onboard in fighting the Al-Qaida and the Taliban,” he said.

Expressing surprise at how bin Laden was present in the military garisson town of Abbotabad, he, however said he did not have the details. He however said a house being so close there whether he must have been visiting is a “failure” of intelligence. Musharraf did not think that there is any “local official collusion”. “I don't think there is any local official collusion (with bin Laden). That possibility is not there but, however, some local people colluding is a possibility. The battle has been won but the war continues.” — PTI

Islamabad, May 2
Al Qaida chief Osama bin Laden was hiding in a massive compound, worth a million US dollars, located just 800 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy near Abbottabad city when he was killed in a pre-dawn raid by US special forces today.

Residents said the compound was bought by a man they knew as Arshad Khan, believed to a resident of Charsadda in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa tribal region. A two-storey building was constructed in the compound in 2005 and those living inside did not mingle with local residents of the area.

Two women and four children, described as bin Laden's wives and offspring, were taken away from the compound. TV footage on television showed a compound with white walls about 12 feet high located amidst agricultural fields surrounded by Pakistani troops.

Earlier footage aired on TV channels showed flames leaping out of the compound from a helicopter that was destroyed in the raid carried out at about 1.15 am.

The residents they had heard several explosions and heavy gunfire. The people inside the compound fired at the helicopters with automatic weapons and rocket launchers, reports said.

Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had contended during an address at a passing out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy on April 23 that the “terrorist backbone had been broken”.

Bin Laden’s killing at a compound near a city that is home to the military academy, a brigade and thousands of army personnel could prove to be an embarrassment to the Pakistani military, observers said.

It could not immediately be ascertained how long Laden, the world’s most wanted man, had been in Abbottabad, which is a two-hour drive from Islamabad.

In January, Indonesian Al- Qaida operative Umar Patek was captured by Pakistani intelligence operatives in Abbottabad. US intelligence became suspicious about the compound in Abbottabad in August last year.

It was eight times larger than other homes in the area and access to the compound was severely restricted, with elaborate security and 12 to 18-foot walls topped with barbed wire, ABC News reported.

The compound had no phone service or televisions and the main building had few windows and a seven-foot wall for privacy. — PTI 

Beirut, May 2
Those who revered him prayed the news was not true but many in the Arab world felt the death of Osama bin Laden was long overdue.

Some said the killing of the Saudi-born Al-Qaida founder in Pakistan was scarcely relevant any more, now that secular uprisings have begun toppling corrupt Arab autocrats who had resisted violent Islamist efforts to weaken their grip on power.

* Laden admirers distraught, warn of revenge  * Others welcome end of man who “harmed” Islam's image  * Followers see exacting revenge  * Some question US account of death

“Oh God, please make this news not true...God curse you, Obama,” said a message on a Jihadist forum in some of the first Islamist reaction to the Al-Qaida leader's death. Oh Americans... it is still legal for us to cut your necks.”

For some in the Middle East, Laden has been seen as the only Muslim leader to take the fight against Western dominance to the heart of the enemy -- in the form of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001.

On the streets of Saudi Arabia, bin Laden's native land which stripped him of his citizenship after September 11, there was a mood of disbelief and sorrow among many. “I feel that it is a lie,” said one Saudi in Riyadh. He did not want to be named. “I don't trust the US government or the media. They just want to be done with his story. It would be a sad thing if he really did die. I love him and in my eyes he is a hero and a jihadist.”

Officials in the country of his birth maintained near silence at the news of bin Laden’s death. The state news agency merely noted that Washington and Pakistan had announced it. Other Gulf Arab states also eschewed comment.

Another strand of opinion believes that bin Laden and Al-Qaida brought catastrophe upon their Muslim world as the United States retaliated with two wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the word “Islam” became associated with “terrorism”.

“The damage bin Laden had caused Islam is beyond appalling and a collective shame,” said another Saudi, Mahmoud Sabbagh, on Twitter.

Another, anonymous, Saudi said: “He might have had a noble idea to elevate Islam but his implementation was wrong and caused more harm than good. I believe his death will calm people down and may dry up the wells of terrorism.”

In Yemen, bin Laden's ancestral home and the base for Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which has been behind recent foiled anti-American attacks, some believed his death would cause his group to lose heart.

“Al-Qaida is finished without bin Laden. Al-Qaida members will not be able to continue,” said Ali Mubarak, a Yemeni man in his 50s as he sipped tea in a cafe in Sanaa.

For many Arabs, inspired by the popular upheavals of the past few months, the news of Osama bin Laden's death had less significance than it once might have. “The death of Osama is coming at a very interesting time. The perfect time, when Al-Qaida is in eclipse and the sentiments of freedom are rising,” said Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi commentator and independent analyst.

Egyptian Thanaa Al-Atroushy said: “Though I am surprised, I don't think such news will affect anything in any way. He is a man of Al-Qaida, who are known to have weird beliefs to justify killing the innocent like those of September 11.”

How can you can convince me that all these years American could not kill or even reach him. Americans knew Laden suffered from health problems. Maybe he was approaching his death and they wanted to exploit it."— Reuters

1957: Osama bin Mohammad bin Awad bin Laden born in Riyadh, one of more than 50 children of millionaire businessman. There are conflicting accounts of his precise date of birth.

1976: Studies management and economics at university in Jeddah.

Dec 26, 1979: Soviet Union invades Afghanistan. From 1984, Osama is involved in Peshawar-based Services Office to support Arab volunteers arriving to fight Soviet forces.

1986: Osama moves to Peshawar, begins importing arms and forms his own small brigade of volunteer fighters.

1988: Al-Qaida (The Base) is established as a magnet for radical Muslims seeking a more fundamentalist brand of government in their home countries and joined in common hatred of the United States, Israel and US-allied Muslim governments.

1991: Bin Laden leaves Saudi Arabia and goes into exile, having opposed the kingdom’s alliance with the United States against Iraq.

1993: Osama family moves to expel Osama as shareholder in its businesses, which focus on construction.

April 9, 1994: Saudi Arabia, angered by Osama’s propaganda against its rulers, revokes his citizenship.

May 1996: Osama is forced to leave Sudan after US pressure on its government, and goes to Afghanistan.

August: Osama issues a fatwa that US military personnel should be killed.

October: US brands Osama as a prime suspect in two bombings in Saudi Arabia which killed 24 US servicemen and two Indians.

August 7, 1998: Truck bombs explode at US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam killing 224, including 12 Americans.

August 20: President Bill Clinton names Osama as America’s top enemy and accuses him of being responsible for the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam bombings. The US launches missile strikes against what Clinton calls terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan. One destroys a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, whose owner denies any affiliation with bin Laden.

October 12, 2000: Al-Qaida strikes at destroyer USS Cole, harboured at Yemeni port of Aden. Seventeen sailors are killed.

September 11, 2001: Three hijacked planes crash into major US landmarks, destroying New York’s World Trade Center and plunging into the Pentagon. A fourth hijacked plane crashes in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people are killed. In a video released later, Osama says the collapse of the towers exceeded Al-Qaida’s expectations.

September 17: US President George W. Bush says Osama is “Wanted: Dead or Alive”.

October 7: United States attacks Taliban-rule Afghanistan, host to bin Laden and Al-Qaida.

December 6: Anti-Taliban forces capture Osama’s main base in Tora Bora mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

September 10, 2002: Al-Jazeera broadcasts what it says is the voice of Osama praising the 9/11 hijackers as men who “changed the course of history”.

November: Al-Qaida claims responsibility for three suicide car bombs in Kenya which blew up the Mombasa Paradise resort hotel, popular with Israelis, killing 15 people and wounding 80.

October 2004: Osama bursts into the US election campaign in his first videotaped message in over a year to deride Bush.

January 2006: Osama’s first public message for over a year is a bid to show he is still in command of Al-Qaida.

September: Bush vows “America will find you”.

September 2007: Osama issues first new video for nearly three years, telling US it is vulnerable despite its power.

May 18, 2008: Osama urges Muslims to break the Israeli-led blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and fight Arab governments that deal with Israel.

January 24, 2010: Osama claims responsibility for the failed December 25 bombing of a US-bound plane in an audio tape and vows to continue attacks on the United States.

March 25: Osama threatens Al-Qaida will kill any American it takes prisoner if accused September 11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, held by United States, is put to death, according to an audiotape aired on Al-Jazeera.

January 21, 2011: Osama says in an audio recording that the release of French hostages held in Niger by Al-Qaida depends on France’s soldiers leaving Muslim lands.

February 26, 1993: Six people are killed when a bomb in a van explodes under the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Osama bin Laden is linked to the attack.

June 25, 1996: A bomb in a fuel truck kills 19 American soldiers and wounds nearly 400 people at a US military housing complex in the eastern city of Khobar in Saudi Arabia. The US later brands Osama as a prime suspect.

August 7, 1998: Truck bombs explode at US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam killing 224, including 12 Americans.

October 12, 2000: Bombing of US warship Cole in Aden harbour kills 17 sailors and blows hole in navy vessel's hull.

September 11, 2001: Three hijacked planes crash into major US landmarks, destroying New York's twin World Trade Center towers and plunging into the Pentagon in the worst such attack in modern history. A fourth hijacked plane crashes in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people are killed in total.

April 11, 2002: A truck explodes near El Ghriba synagogue on the southern Tunisian island of Djerba, killing 14 Germans, five Tunisians and a Frenchman. Al-Qaida claims responsibility.

October 12: Bombs explode in Kuta Beach nightclub district of Bali in Indonesia, killing 202 people. Members of banned Islamic group Jemaah Islamiyah, linked to Al-Qaida, admit responsibility.

November 28: Three suicide car bombers blow up a hotel popular with Israelis in the Kenyan resort of Mombasa, killing 15 people. On the same day, two missiles narrowly miss an Israeli Arkia Boeing 757 carrying 261 passengers on take-off from Mombasa airport. Al-Qaida says it was responsible.

May 12, 2003: At least 35 people, including nine Americans, are killed by Al-Qaida bombers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

May 16: Coordinated blasts in Casablanca, Morocco kill 45 people, including 13 bombers, and wound about 60.

August 19: A suicide truck bomb wrecks the Canal Hotel, which served as UN headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people, including UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. In the following months and years, Al-Qaida carries out numerous attacks in Iraq under its local leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, including bombings, kidnappings and the beheading of hostages.

November 9: Al-Qaida suicide bombers kill up to 30 people in a Riyadh residential compound.

July 7, 2005: Four suicide bombers kill 52 people in attacks on three London underground trains and a bus. In September, Al-Qaida's no. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri says Al-Qaida carried out the bombings to strike at "British arrogance".

November 9: Bombers attack three hotels in Jordan's capital Amman. Fifty-seven people and three bombers are killed.Iraq's Al-Qaida group claims responsibility.

April 11, 2007: Suicide bombs kill 33 people in central Algiers, the first big bomb attacks in the centre of the Algerian capital in more than a decade. They are later claimed by the Al-Qaida Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

December 11: Two blasts kill at least 41 people, including 17 U.N. staff, at U.N. offices in Algiers. Al-Qaida claims responsibility.

December 25, 2009: A Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is accused of attempting to bomb a US-bound passenger plane. The Yemen-based Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula claims responsibility.

January 25, 2010: Three suicide bombs rock hotels in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killing at least 36. Al-Qaida-linked insurgents claim responsibility.

July: French tourist Michel Germaneau killed by AQIM, three months after it kidnapped him in Niger.

October 31: Gunmen seize hostages during Sunday mass at a church in Baghdad. Around 52 hostages and police are killed. Al-Qaida's Iraqi affiliate claims responsibility for the attack on "the dirty den of idolatry".

November 5: AQAP claims responsibility for a foiled plot to send explosive parcels to the United States. Two parcel bombs were intercepted on cargo planes in Britain and Dubai.

January 2011: France says AQIM was almost certainly behind the abduction of two Frenchmen killed in Niger.

April 28, 2011: A bomb kills 15 people including 10 foreigners in Marrakesh, Morocco, in an attack that bore the hallmark of Islamist militants. The previous week, men claiming to be Moroccan members of AQIM appeared on the Internet threatening to attack Moroccan interests. — Reuters

Osama bin Laden put Islamist 'holy' war on the global agenda and became a household name after the Saudi-born zealot masterminded the deadliest terror attacks in history before the world's most wanted terrorist was finally brought down in the largest and longest manhunt ever.

Reviled in the West as the personification of evil, bin Laden, the leader of the dreaded Al-Qaida who was believed to be around 54 years, had emerged from obscurity in a matter of three years on September 11, 2001 when the spectacular attacks on the US leaving more than 3,000 people dead and hundreds more injured gave him a cult status.

Osama bin laden, who was born in 1957 but the exact date is unknown, had issued a fatwa in 1998 on behalf of the World Front for jihad against Jews and Crusaders, stating that killing Americans and their allies was a Muslim duty.

Despite being a thorn in Amercia's side, bin Laden, the 17th of 52 children of multimillionaire builder Mohammed bin Laden, was admired and even revered by some fellow Muslims who embraced his vision of unending jihad against the US and Arab governments he deemed as infidels.

Mohammed, a native of Yemen, who immigrated to Saudi Arabia as a child, was responsible for 80 per cent of construction of Saudi Arabia's roads.

Osama bin Laden was the nemesis of former US President George W Bush, who pledged to take him "dead or alive" and whose two terms were dominated by a "war on terror" against his Al-Qaida network.

Though he was forced into hiding after 9/11, the attack on US served as an inspiration for a global jihadist movement that would grow far beyond any need for his guiding hand.

Whether hated as a terrorist and mass murderer or hailed as the champion of oppressed Muslims fighting injustice and humiliation, bin Laden changed the course of history which made the US and its allies rewrite their security doctrines.

His end came after tireless efforts by US agencies Even before 9/11, bin Laden, the thin, bearded and over 6 feet tall man who aroused the passions of young Muslim radicals the world over, was already on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. He had been implicated in a series of deadly, high-profile attacks that had grown in their intensity and success during the 1990s.

Osama bin Laden once reportedly slipping out of a training camp in Afghanistan just hours before a barrage of US cruise missiles destroyed it, His actions set off a chain of events that led the US into wars in Afghanistan, and then Iraq, and a clandestine war against extreme Islamic adherents that touched scores of countries on every continent but Antarctica. America's entire intelligence apparatus was overhauled to counter the threat of more terror attacks at home.

His path to militant Islam began as a teenager in the 1970s when he got caught up in the fundamentalist movement then sweeping Saudi Arabia. He was a voracious reader of Islamic literature and listened to weekly sermons in the holy city of Mecca.

Osama bin Laden joined the Afghans' war against invading Soviet troops in the 1980s and gained a reputation as a courageous and resourceful commander. Access to his family's considerable construction fortune certainly helped raise his profile among the mujahedeen fighters.

At the time, bin Laden's interests converged with those of the United States, which backed the "holy war" against Soviet occupation with money and arms.

When bin Laden returned home to Saudi Arabia, he was showered with praise and donations and was in demand as a speaker in mosques and homes. It did not take long for his aims to A seminal moment in bin Laden's life came in 1990, when U.S. troops landed on Saudi soil to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.

He tried to dissuade the government from allowing non-Muslim armies into the land where the Prophet Muhammad gave birth to Islam, but the Saudi leadership turned to the US to protect its vast oil reserves. When bin Laden continued criticizing Riyadh's close alliance with Washington, he was stripped of Saudi citizenship.

In his familiar terrain in Afghanistan allowed in by the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, bin Laden and his Al-Qaida network prepared for the holy war that turned him into Washington's No.1 enemy.

When the Taliban who would eventually give him refuge first took control of Kabul in September 1996, bin Laden and his Arab followers kept a low profile, uncertain of their welcome under the new regime.

The Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar called bin Laden to southern Kandahar from his headquarters in Tora Bora and eventually through large and continual financial contributions to the isolated Taliban, bin Laden became dependent on the religious militia for his survival.

In Afghanistan, he would wake before dawn for prayers, then eat a simple breakfast of cheese and bread. He closely monitored world affairs. Almost daily, he and his men Egyptians, Yemenis, Saudis, among others practiced attacks, hurling explosives at targets and shooting at imaginary enemies.

Al-Qaida 's first major strike after bin Laden returned to Afghanistan was on August 7, 1998, when twin explosions rocked US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Since September 11, bin Laden stayed a step ahead of the US dragnet perhaps the largest in history for a single individual.

As the Taliban quickly fell under pressure of the US bombardment, bin Laden fled into the inhospitable mountains in the seam that separates Pakistan and Afghanistan, keeping up a spotty stream of chatterfirst in video tapes and then in scratchy audio recordings to warn his Western pursuers of more bloodshed.

Just hours after the US assault on Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001, bin Laden appeared in a video delivered to Al-Jazeera, an Arab satellite television station, to issue a threat to America.

He reappeared in a video appearance broadcast by Al-Jazeera on Dec. 27, 2001, shortly after US forces apparently had him cornered in Tora Bora, a giant cave complex in eastern Afghanistan. Hundreds of Al-Qaida suspects are believed to have escaped the massive US bombing campaign there, and bin Laden is believed to have been among them.

During the past decade, bin Laden and deputy Ayman al-Zawahri have appeared regularly in audio and video tapes to issue threats, and comment on a wide range of current events, although the appearances trailed off in recent years. — PTI 

Abbottabad, May 2
Pakistani troops laid an extensive security blanket over this garrison city in northwest Pakistan shortly after US forces killed Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden, cutting off access to the compound where the world’s most wanted man was gunned down.

Scores of soldiers and security forces ringed the compound in Bilal Town area of Abbottabad and sealed roads leading to it, preventing reporters and TV camera crews from approaching the site.

The compound is located about 800 metres from the Pakistan Military Academy, one of the country’s main training facilities for army officers.

Most of the residents of Bilal Town, a neighbourhood located a short distance from the Pakistan Military Academy, are civilians and businessmen.

Several well-off persons who fled the Bajaur tribal region after the army launched anti-militancy operations also have homes in the area.

Local residents were woken by the sound of explosions and gunfire shortly after 1 am but said they were completely unaware that foreign troops had launched an operation in the area against a high-value target like the Al-Qaida chief.

Muhammad Saadullah, a student, told PTI: “I heard several big explosions and firing and got out of bed. I saw two helicopters hovering over the area and then there was more firing.” Saadullah said local residents came out of their homes but were told to go back inside by troops who had taken up positions in the area.

“This is a very peaceful city and we never expected something like this would happen here,” he said.

Many residents said they were angry and upset that US troops had carried out an operation in Pakistani territory.

Some criticised Pakistani authorities for allowing such an operation to be carried out by foreign troops.

Some residents, who did not want to be named, said they were “unhappy” at the death of bin Laden and said it “should not have happened”.

Officials were tight-lipped and refused to comment on any aspect of the operation, including the whereabouts of bin Laden’s body.

The compound in which bin Laden was hiding out was built in 2005 and had walls that were 12 to 18 feet high and were topped with barbed wire.

One of bin Laden’s sons, two couriers and a woman being used as a human shield were also killed in the operation, during which a helicopter was destroyed within the compound. — PTI 

Islamabad, May 2
Al-Qaida’s second-in-command, Egyptian-born doctor and surgeon Ayman al-Zawahri, is expected to succeed Osama bin Laden.

Zawahri has been the brains behind bin Laden and his Al-Qaida network, and at times its most public face, repeatedly denouncing the United States and its allies in video messages. In the latest monitored by the SITE Intelligence Group last month, Zawahri urged Muslims to fight NATO and American forces in Libya.

“I want to direct the attention of our Muslim brothers in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and the rest of the Muslim countries, that if the Americans and the NATO forces enter Libya then their neighbours in Egypt and Tunisia and Algeria and the rest of the Muslim countries should rise up and fight both the mercenaries of Gaddafi and the rest of NATO,” he said.

Zawahri and Laden met in the mid-1980s when both were in Peshawar to support guerrillas fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, and worked closely thereafter. But the alliance was not Zawahri's first foray into militancy.

Born into an upper-class family of scholars and doctors in an upscale Cairo neighbourhood, the cerebral Egyptian in his late-50s is second after bin Laden on the FBI “most wanted terrorists” list.

Both Laden and Zawahri eluded capture when US-led forces toppled Afghanistan's Taliban government in late 2001 after Al-Qaida’s September 11 attacks on US cities.

Bespectacled, with gray hair and a gray beard, Zawahri won prominence in November 2008, when he attacked then US President-elect Obama as a “house Negro,” a racially-charged term used by 1960s black American Muslim leader Malcolm X to describe black slaves loyal to white masters.

In a subsequent video, in September 2009, Zawahri returned to the attack on Obama, saying he was no different from his predecessor George W. Bush. “America has come with a new deceptive face ... It plants the same dagger as Bush and his predecessors did. Obama has resorted to the policies of his predecessors in lying and selling illusions,” said Zawahri, clad in white robe and turban.

Like Laden, Zawahri has long been thought to be hiding along the rugged Afghan-Pakistan border. The last video of Zawahri and Laden together was broadcast by Al Jazeera on September 10, 2003. It showed them walking in mountains, calling for jihad and praising the September 11 hijackers. — PTI

In 1999, an Egyptian military court sentenced Zawahri to death in absentia. He has also been indicted in connection with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Days after those bombings, he telephoned a Pakistani reporter, denying responsibility, but urging Muslims to "continue their jihad against the Americans and Jews". An hour later, US cruise missiles hit Al-Qaida's Afghan training camps. Both bin Laden and Zawahri escaped injury. Zawahri's wife, Azza, and three daughters were reported killed in a bombing strike on Kandahar, the stronghold of the Taliban, in early December 2001.

Washington, May 2
Abbottabad city in Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden was shot dead by US Special Forces today, was once home to Libyan national Abu al-Libi, the operational chief of Al-Qaida who had long-term associations with the most wanted terrorist and provided safe havens to him.

Libi was a Guantanamo Bay detainee, who in July 2003 received a letter from bin Laden’s designated courier, Maulawi Abd al-Khaliq Jan, requesting him to take on the responsibility of collecting donations, organising travel, and distributing funds to families (of Al-Qaida members) in Pakistan.

The details are part of Libi’s secret interrogation reports brought out by Internet whistleblower WikiLeaks.

“Detainee (Libi) was the operational chief of Al-Qaida and had long-term associations with Osama bin Laden (OBL) and Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri...,” the executive summary of Libi signed by an American Rear Admiral said.

It added, “Detainee planned and executed operations against the US and other nations, including an alleged 2003 assassination attempt against President Musharraf of Pakistan.

“Detainee provided safe havens for OBL and senior Al-Qaida leader Dr Ayman al Zawahiri in 2001 and 2003.” Talking about his Abbottabad city connections, the report says, “OBL stated detainee would be the official messenger between OBL and others in Pakistan.

“In mid-2003, detainee moved his family to Abbottabad, PK and worked between Abbottabad and Peshawar.” However, the report said in mid 2004, Libi moved his family from Abbottabad to Bajaur in Pakistan.

He was assessed to be of “high intelligence value” and was arrested by Pakistani special forces on May 2, 2005, while he was waiting to meet with another operative in Mardan.

US media report today had said a trusted courier of bin Laden’s, whom American spies had been hunting for years, finally led them to the Al-Qaida chief.

New York Times reported that detainees at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had given the courier’s pseudonym to American interrogators and said that the man was a protege of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

American intelligence officials said that they finally learned the courier’s real name four years ago, but that it took another two years for them to learn the location where he operated. — PTI 

Islamabad, May 2
The killing of Osama bin Laden by US forces in a compound located just 800 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy near Abbottabad ended the hunt for the world's most wanted man though several aspects of his death remained shrouded in mystery.

The Pakistan government maintained silence on the death of the Al-Qaida chief for almost four hours after it was announced by US President Barack Obama.

Over 18 hours after the operation mounted by US special forces, there was no clarity on the whereabouts of the body of bin Laden.

"Several key issues are still shrouded in mystery. Questions are being raised on whether the US raid amounted to a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty. And where is the body?" said noted security analyst Imitiaz Gul.

"The US seems to have had enough actionable intelligence and it didn't want to take a risk by involving Pakistan in the operation," Gul, the author of "The Most Dangerous place", told PTI.

Some analysts claimed Pakistani security forces appeared to have been taken unawares as the US team flew in from Afghanistan, covering the distance from the border to the garrison city of Abbottabad in about 30 minutes.

Other observers, however, pointed to a flurry of visits to Pakistan last month by several top American military officials, including Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Admiral Mike Mullen, and concluded that both sides had mounted a joint operation.

Pakistan's Foreign Office said in a statement that bin Laden was killed in an intelligence driven operation by US forces. The statement was silent on the involvement of Pakistani security and intelligence agencies in the operation.

However, the killing of the world's most wanted man, who carried a bounty of USD 25 million on his head, in a fortified compound a short distance from Pakistan's equivalent of Britain's Sandhurst or the US West Point raised some awkward and embarrassing questions for Pakistani authorities.

Journalists who visited the white-walled compound near Abbottabad, 120 km from Islamabad, said it was located about 800 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy.

The compound is located within the Abbottabad cantonment, which has several check posts and is home to thousands of troops.

The compound was known to local residents as "Waziristan Haveli" as it was believed to be owned by people from Waziristan, described by the US as a safe haven for Taliban and Qaida militants. — PTI