CIA spied on Bin Laden from safe house

The surveillance facility in Abbottabad had been set up after the discovery of the suspicious complex in August.

WASHINGTON:

The CIA maintained a safe house in Abbottabad for a small team of spies who conducted extensive surveillance over a period of months on the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces earlier this week, the Washington Post reported on Friday.

The secret CIA facility was used as a base of operations, one that relied on Pakistani informants and other sources to help assemble a “pattern of life” portrait of the occupants and daily activities at the fortified compound where Bin Laden was found, the newspaper reported US officials as saying.

The on-the-ground surveillance work was part of an intelligence-gathering push mobilized after the discovery of the suspicious complex in August. The effort was so extensive and costly that the CIA went to Congress in December to secure authority to reallocate tens of millions of dollars within assorted agency budgets to fund it, US officials said.

The discovery of bin Laden in Abbottabad has raised suspicion that he was placed there and being protected by elements of the Pakistani military and intelligence service, but US officials said they have seen no conclusive evidence that was the case.

The city offered a number of advantages for Bin Laden, chief among them was being at a safe distance from the tribal regions that are patrolled by armed US drones.

“He probably felt that if he could conceal his presence and it would be an unlikely area for the United States to pursue him,” a US official said.

US officials said there were also disadvantages for bin Laden in residing in Abbottabad, including the fact that the area is relatively welcoming to outsiders, including US soldiers who have at times been sent to Abbottabad to train Pakistani troops.

The CIA took advantage of that atmosphere to send case officers and recruited informants into Abbottabad undetected, and set up a safe house that functioned as its base.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2011.