While U.S. intelligence officials worked furiously to track Usama bin Laden, the world’s most-wanted terrorist was living in a sprawling, $1 million complex surrounded by a privacy wall and security gates. He was living a short walk from a top military training center in a town about 35 miles from Pakistan’s capital. The neighborhood where he spent his time was affluent, and filled with retired military.
How did Pakistan miss this?
That’s the question U.S. lawmakers and other officials are asking themselves as they assess the stunning announcement that bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by an elite U.S. team Sunday afternoon.
Though there are conflicting reports about how much Pakistani officials knew and how much they shared, the fact that the terror leader was hiding out, possibly for years, in a conspicuous and suspicious compound fueled concerns in Washington that Pakistan has not done all it can to assist the United States despite enormous aid provided to the country.
“How could he be in such a compound without being noticed?” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News.
White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said the administration is “pursuing all leads” to find out whether bin Laden had “benefactors” and a “support system” inside Pakistan.
“We are looking right now at how he was able to hold out there for so long,” he said.
In a possible sign of fraying trust between the two nations, senior Obama administration officials said they shared their intelligence on the compound with no other country “including Pakistan” — though they said Pakistani cooperation helped lead America to bin Laden.
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ThecommentboxisstillmessedupforpeoplewithbBBtorc&thenewestsoftwarebundl
There are dangerous fugitives in the US who have been on the run for years; often they are found in the most normal-looking places. Osama Bin Laden’s long run as a wanted terrorist isn’t even the record: Katherine Ann Power was a fugitive for 23 years and might never have been caught had she not turned herself in. She had been living a normal life under an assumed name.