Captured wife relives Osama's life in mansion- Obama visits 9-11 victims in New York

Osama bin Laden lived in his Pakistani compound with his large family right under the nose of the military for about five years, according to excerpts from the interrogation of his youngest wife.



Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, 29, who was captured during the raid by the United States Special Forces, reportedly told her interrogators that the al Quaeda leader lived in the compound with three wives, who were all under strict orders not to venture out of the fortified house and many children.

She was injured during the attack, shot in the leg, as she rushed at the intruders.
According to The Daily Telegraph, quoting Pakistani military sources, 13 children were recovered from the compound in Abbottabad after US Navy Seals shot dead the world’s most wanted man. Eight of them are believed to be the sons and daughters of bin Laden himself.

The details gradually emerging from officials in Islamabad paint an intriguing picture of an extended family cooped up together for years on end as they evaded capture, only 30 miles from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and less than a mile from an officer training academy.

The apparently unauthorised raid has caused deep embarrassment to Pakistan’s supposedly powerful military establishment.

Last night, in their first reaction, senior military commanders said they were ordering a reduction in numbers of American personnel to the "minimum essential", taking already turbulent relations between the two countries – awkward allies in the war against Islamist extremists – to a new low.

The officers admitted "shortcomings" in their attempts to gather intelligence on Osama bin Laden, but insisted they were capable of defending key assets, despite the embarrassing raid by American Special Forces.

Islamabad’s top brass are under intense pressure from foreign powers to explain how they were unable to track down bin Laden in their own back yard.

And at the same time, they face questions from a public wondering how the country’s powerful military failed to spot and stop unknown aircraft attacking a civilian target.
General Ashfaq Kayani, the Army’s Chief of Staff (COAS), in a statement released after the meeting, said any similar action violating the sovereignty of Pakistan would prompt a review of co-operation with the US.

"The Corps Commanders were informed about the decision to reduce the strength of US military personnel in Pakistan to the minimum essential," said the statement.
"As regards the possibility of similar hostile action against our strategic assets, the Forum reaffirmed that, unlike an undefended civilian compound, our strategic assets are well protected and an elaborate defensive mechanism is in place."

Days after the killing of bin Laden, United States President Barack Obama met New York firefighters and police yesterday. He also visited Ground Zero to offer comfort to a city still scarred by the September 11, 2001 attacks.

His predecessor George W. Bush, just three days after hijacked planes destroyed the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers, stood, bullhorn in hand, in the smoldering wreckage to declare: "The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."
Almost a decade later, in a bookend to that historic visit, Obama came to New York to say that promise had been kept.

He said the killing of bin Laden told the world, "that when we say we will never forget, we mean what we say."

Obama visited the "Pride of Manhattan" Engine 54 firehouse in midtown, which lost 15 members in the attacks, before heading to Lower Manhattan to talk with police and lay a wreath at Ground Zero where he met with victims’ families.

Obama shook hands with firefighters and told them: "I wanted to just come here to thank you."

"This is a symbolic site of the extraordinary sacrifice that was made on that terrible day almost 10 years ago."

"It didn’t matter who was in charge, we were going to make sure that the perpetrators of that horrible act - that they received justice," Obama said.

Bin Laden, who masterminded the September 11 attacks, was shot in the head by U.S. forces who stormed his compound in Pakistan on Monday after a decade-long manhunt. Nearly 3,000 people were killed when al Qaeda hijackers crashed commercial planes into the Twin Towers, the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., and a Pennsylvania field.

"It’s a good thing he is coming to visit," said Al Fiammetta, 57, a safety engineer from Bellport, New York, who said he worked at Ground Zero, clearing debris and waited to see Obama. "We have been waiting for this for 10 years. It puts a little more American pride in people."

New York City resident Caroline Epner, 32 and seven months pregnant, said: "It’s OK for him to take a victory lap."

At Ground Zero during a bright and sunny afternoon, Obama laid a wreath of red, white and blue flowers to honour those who died. Obama then paused, bowed his head, closed his eyes and held his hands together for a moment of silence.

Obama, who made no remarks at the site, greeted relatives of the victims. The brief ceremony took place by the "Survivor’s Tree", which amazingly survived the attacks and was nursed back to health and then returned to be part of the memorial that will open on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

He stood in a place that almost a decade ago was the pulverised remains of what were once the world’s tallest buildings, which for weeks after the attacks spread a ghoulish dust over Lower Manhattan.

Visible progress in the roughly $11 billion project to rebuild the World Trade Center site is now finally being made after suffering delays from political, security and financing concerns. The 1,776-foot (541-meter) centerpiece, 1 World Trade Center, already stands more than 60 stories high.

September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows urged Obama to now close the U.S. military prison housing foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and bring home American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"May the wreath you lay today, at the grave site of our loved ones, be more than a symbolic gesture," the group said in a statement.

The killing of bin Laden coincided with the first anniversary of a failed attempt to bomb New York’s Times Square, one of at least 11 plots against the city that have been disrupted in the past decade.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has described the raid on bin Laden’s compound as "the most intense minutes of my life".

Mrs Clinton was with Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Defence Secretary Robert Gates and top military brass, watching the Navy Seals raid on the compound.

Clinton said she has "no idea" what she was watching at the precise moment a photographer snapped what has become the defining image of the Osama bin Laden operation.
Mrs Clinton said the raid was "38 of the most intense minutes" in her life, but her expression and the fact that her hand is covering her mouth might not convey any special significance.

Mrs Clinton, who suffers from allergies, said she was embarrassed that her hand gesture might have only been an attempt to stifle a cough or sneeze.


She spoke at a news conference with Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini ahead of a diplomatic meeting in Italy on Libya.

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