New York/Islamabad, May 7
Pakistan may be living in a state of denial but there is more evidence now that Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden was living in another house not far from the Abbottabad complex where he was shot dead on Monday.

Amal Ahmed Abdul Fattah, bin Laden’s 29-year-old Yemeni widow, has told Pakistani investigators that he had lived with his family for nearly two-and-a-half years in the village of Chak Shah Mohammad, less than 2 km southeast of the town of Haripur, on the main Abbottabad highway, the New York Times reported quoting two unnamed Pakistani officials.

One of the officials said this meant that bin Laden had moved from the rugged terrains of tribal villages to the relatively urban settings sometime in 2003.

Trying to piece together bin Laden’s life prior to the US raid that killed him, Pakistani sleuths today focused on Haripur district in the wake of his wife’s statement.

Security and intelligence operatives fanned out in Chak Shah Mohammad, TV news channels reported.

Laden had apparently spent seven-and-half years in the Haripur and Abbottabad regions of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

Amal said bin Laden along with his children and grandchildren moved to the compound in Bilal Town (in Abbotabad) towards the end of 2005, the Dawn newspaper quoted unnamed officials as saying. Chak Shah Mohammad village is located 34 km from the garrison town of Abbottabad and two kilometres southeast of Haripur town.

Amal also told investigators that contrary to a widely held belief that the 54-year-old Al-Qaida leader required dialysis to treat a chronic kidney ailment, bin Laden was hale and hearty.

Since bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora in 2001, both Pakistani and American officials believed he was hiding in the tribal belt along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

“Imagine, this guy was living in our midst in Haripur and Abbottabad for seven-and-a half years and we all, both Pakistanis and Americans, had been looking for him in the wrong direction,” one official remarked.

NYT quoted Hassan Abbas, a former Pakistani official now teaching at Columbia University as saying, “If he was there since 2005, that is too long a time for local police and intelligence not to know.”

Several Al-Qaida elements had chosen to live in the relatively secure environs of Haripur and Abbottabad, away from the prying eyes of intelligence agencies, the Dawn said. In May 2009, the police arrested Al-Qaida operative Abdullah al Masri from Malikyar village. Three days later, militants attacked police guarding the house occupied by al Masri's two wives and killed three policemen. One of the assailants, a Pakistani identified as a resident of Malikpura in Abbottabad, was killed in the attack.

Indonesian al-Qaeda operative Umar Patek, a suspect in the Bali bombings of 2002, was arrested from Malikpura, Abbottabad, in January this year. Indonesian authorities have said Patek, arrested by Pakistani intelligence, came to Abbottabad to meet bin Laden.

According to Pakistani officials, Amal spent the last night with bin Laden and gave an account of what had transpired. — PTI 

Washington, May 7
Saluting the commandos who eliminated Osama bin Laden for a “job well done”, President Barack Obama has declared that the US had “cut off” Al-Qaida’s head with the killing of its chief and would ultimately crush the terror outfit.

“We have cut off their head and we will ultimately defeat them,” he said last evening after meeting privately with members of the assault team that killed bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad on Monday.

“We’re making progress in our major goal, our central goal in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that is disrupting and dismantling and ... ultimately defeating Al-Qaida,” Obama said at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where had gone to address American troops on their return from active duty in Afghanistan.

This was the President’s first major address on the issue after he announced on Monday that bin Laden has been killed in a successful US operation in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad.

Obama also met the American special forces commandos, who killed bin Laden, and saluted them on behalf of the US and people all over the world for a “job well done”.

The President, who was accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, was briefed about the operation by members of the special operations troops who executed the dangerous raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad.

The White House said Obama and Biden met the full assault force that carried out the operation.

Obama awarded a Presidential Unit Citation, the highest such honour that can be given to a unit, to those involved in the operation in recognition of their extraordinary service and achievement. — PTI 

BRIEFLY

UK ruling coalition party loses referendum, poll
London: In major setbacks to Britain’s ruling Liberal Democrats, the voters have rejected their bid to adopt an alternative voting system and punished them in local council elections. The losses are seen as a personal blow to Deputy PM Nick Clegg, who favoured the proportional representation voting system to the current first-past-the-post system. Voters also dealt major electoral defeats in local councils even in the party’s stronghold in north England. It was the first test of public opinion after general elections in Britain last year. — PTI

All 27 feared dead in Indonesia crash
Jakarta: A plane carrying about 25 passengers and crew crashed into the sea during a downpour on Saturday in eastern Indonesia, killing everyone on board, a navy officer told local radio. “I can confirm that all the passengers were killed when the plane exploded as it crashed into the sea,” a navy officer involved in the search told ElShinta radio. A transport ministry spokesman earlier said there were 27 people, 21 passengers and six crew, on board the Merpati Nusantara airlines MA-60 aircraft. — AFP

Syrian tanks enter coastal town
Beirut: Syrian tanks rolled into a Mediterranean coastal town on Saturday in an escalating crackdown by President Bashar Assad, just a day after clashes with anti-government protesters left at least 30 dead nationwide, activists said. Details of the troop deployment in Banias, which has seen weeks of demonstrations demanding regime change, were scarce as communication and phone lines with the town and the surrounding area were cut off. But activists in touch with townspeople said soldiers on tanks rolled into Banias before dawn. — AP

Tunisia jails Ben Ali’s relative for 2 yrs
Tunis: A court in Tunisia on Saturday sentenced Imed Trabelsi, nephew of the powerful wife of ousted Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, to two years in prison for drug use, a judicial source said. The ruling marked the first time a member of Ben Ali's close family has been sentenced to jail time since he was ousted in a popular uprising in January. Trabelsi was arrested on January 14, on the day Ben Ali and his wife Leila Trabelsi fled to Saudi Arabia. — AFP

India, China invoke Tagore’s spirit
Beijing: India and China on Saturday made a strong pitch to rekindle close cultural links invoking the spirit of the 1924 “epic journey” of Rabindranath Tagore, voted by Chinese as among 50 foreigners who contributed most in shaping China’s modern development. “Tagore was not only a great friend of the Chinese civilisation, but also a very faithful friend of all Chinese people”, Chen Haosu, President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, said while addressing the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Tagore. — PTI 

Taliban launch string of attacks in Kandahar 
Kandahar: The Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks, including six suicide bombings, on government targets in the major southern Afghan city of Kandahar on day, leaving at least 14 persons wounded. Militants with guns and rocket-propelled grenades launched an assault on the governor's office, and 10 explosions, including six suicide blasts, rocked the city. Gunmen occupied a hotel near the local office of Afghanistan's intelligence service, while suicide bombers tried to attack two police offices in the south's de facto capital but were shot before they could reach their targets.. — PTI