Islamabad left red-faced

The killing of Osama bin Laden just yards from a military compound in the city of Abbottabad has come as a major embarrassment to the Pakistani establishment, including the army, which has been vehemently denying the presence of the al Qaeda chief on its territory over the years.

It has now transpired that bin Laden had been hiding, reportedly since 2005, in a massive compound, worth $1 million, located just 800 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad city- about 120 km from the capital city of Islamabad. The fact that he was hiding in the city, which is home to the military academy, a brigade and thousands of army personnel, has come as an embarrassment to the Pakistani military.

Residents of Abbottabad – a city of about 500,000 – said the compound was bought by a man they knew as Arshad Khan, believed to be 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 inhabitants of the area.

US intelligence became suspicious about the compound in August last year. It was eight times larger than other houses in the area and access to it was severely restricted, with elaborate security and 12 to 18-foot walls topped with barbed wire, ABC News reported. The compound had neither phone nor internet service, nor even television and the main building had few windows and a seven-foot wall for privacy

Pakistani troops sealed off the compound and blocked all roads leading to it hours after the operation that resulted in the death of bin Laden, one of his sons, two suspected couriers and a woman who was used as a human shield.

Two women and four children, described as bin Laden’s wives and offspring, were taken away. The residents said they heard several explosions and heavy gunfire. The people inside the compound fired at the helicopters with automatic weapons, reports said.

Another source of embarrassment to the Pakistan was the fact that they were kept in the dark till the operation to kill Laden was successfully accomplished. “We are very concerned that he was inside Pakistan, but this is something that we’re going to continue to work with the Pakistani government on,” a senior official said.

US shared intelligence on the Osama operation with no other country, including Pakistan, sources said. It was only after Osama was killed that President Obama called his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari to inform him of the mission accomplished.

Just days before the Monday’s operation by the CIA, powerful army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had contended during an address at a passing out parade at the Pakistan Military Academy, a few hundreds yards from the Obama’s shelter, on April 23, that the "terrorist backbone had been broken".

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 US.