Vital information: US investigators question Bin Laden’s widows

Women were interviewed as a group despite US wishes to interview them separately.

WASHINGTON:

Pakistan has let US intelligence agents interview Osama bin Laden’s wives, as they probe how the al Qaeda leader managed to hide for years in the garrison town of Abbottabad, the White House said on Friday.

“The United States government has gained access to Osama bin Laden’s wives held by Pakistan,” White House spokesperson Jay Carney said, without offering further details.

Earlier, CNN quoted US and Pakistani sources as saying that US intelligence services had interrogated three of the widows of the terrorist mastermind, shot dead in a US special forces raid on May 2.

The women were reportedly interviewed as a group, despite US wishes to interview them separately, and were openly “hostile” to US officials interviewing them, said CNN, quoting a Pakistani government official and two US officials close to matter.

The eldest of the wives spoke for all them in the interview, which was also attended by members of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Members of both governments told CNN that despite the uptick in tensions between the two anti-terror allies in the wake of the US commando raid that killed bin Laden, intelligence sharing has continued.

It is thought the women could have vital information on the al Qaeda network and Bin Laden’s involvement – from his hide-out – in their operations.







Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2011.