Bin Laden lived in Pakistan compound 5-6 years

US found al-Qaida leader's courier, a Kuwaiti citizen, by monitoring phone call; newspaper publishes purported bin Laden will.

By REUTERS, JPOST.COM STAFF
Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan 311 (photo credit: US Department of Defense)
Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan 311
(photo credit: US Department of Defense)
Osama bin Laden lived for the past five to six years in the compound deep inside Pakistan where the al-Qaida leader was killed by US forces, US President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism adviser said on Tuesday.
Bin Laden, who was living in Afghanistan before a 2001 US-led invasion helped topple its Taliban regime, was holed up in a compound in the military garrison town of Abbottabad in Pakistan before Sunday's operation to kill him.
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"Well I think the latest information is that he was in this compound for the past five or six years and he had virtually no interaction with others outside that compound. But yet he seemed to be very active inside the compound," White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan said on the CBS Early Show program.
"And we know that he had released videos and audios. We know that he was in contact with some senior al-Qaida officials," Brennan added.
"So what we're trying to do now is to understand what he has been involved in over the past several years, exploit whatever information we were able to get at the compound and take that information and continue our efforts to destroy al Qaida," Brennan added.
A phone call monitored by US intelligence services led Washington to bin Laden's personal courier last year, who in turn led them to the compound the Associated Press quoted a US official as saying on Tuesday.
The courier was a Kuwaiti citizen named Abu Ahmad, CNN quoted a diplomatic source as saying on Tuesday.
Also on Tuesday, Kuwaiti newspaper Al -Anbaa published a document they claim is bin Laden's last will and testament.
The will was dated December 14, 2001, corresponding with a period in which US forces were heavily bombarding areas of Afghanistan in hopes of catching bin Laden following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
In the document, bin Laden implores his children not to join al-Qaida.