It took nearly a decade after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC for U.S. intelligence officials to realize that Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 plot cave or remote tribal region of Pakistan. For about the last five years of his life as a fugitive, his home was a large complex in Abbottabad, shared with several wives and children and a handful of followers. The location was barely a mile from the Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul.
How did the godfather of modern radical Islamic terrorism live during these years of self-imposed isolation? Very carefully.
1. Bin Laden chose to hide in plain sight
After September 11, the bin Laden family spent several years on the run, moving from one sympathetic Pakistani location to another – including the border town of Peshawar and the rural valley of Swat, among others. When his supporters decided it was time for the family to settle down, they chose Abbottabad, which bin Laden had visited and loved.
In 2004, his trusted confidant Ibrahim Saeed Ahmed (nom de arte: Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti) paid a total of $ 48,000 to acquire a handful of small contiguous lots which together amounted to about an acre in a soggy field just above northeast of downtown Abbottabad. According to authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark in their 2017 book Exile: the escape of Osama bin Laden, the man, calling himself Mohammad Arshad, claimed he was buying the land for an uncle fleeing a blood feud.
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2. He had the compound built to measure
“Arshad” hired a local architectural firm to draw up plans for a large two-story building on the site – with very specific criteria. On the ground floor, the new villa has been designed with four bedrooms and three bathrooms, as well as a kitchen; the second floor had four more bedrooms and four bathrooms. A third floor was added later, write Levy and Scott-Clark; it would become Bin Laden’s living room, with a bedroom, an office and a small bathroom and a kitchen.
The size of the new house was unusual, as was its relative lack of windows. But the features that amazed the locals were its walls. “Arshad” asked a local builder to build a 7-foot-high wall around one of the buildings, then an 18-foot-high thick wall around the entire complex, topped with barbed wire. This intrigued the builder, both because the Bilal Town neighborhood was safe and peaceful – and because it was much higher than the architect’s plans called for. “Arshad” warned him that if he asked more questions he would be fired. The personalization went so far as to apply an anti-spy film on the windows of the upper floors.
An aerial photo of the Osama Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, date unknown.
Courtesy of the CIA
3. It is not known how many people lived there
The complex became known to locals as Waziristan Haveli, or Waziristan House / Mansion, due to the Waziri accents of “Arshad” and his brother, Ibrahim. The two men – mainstays of Al Qaeda who would serve as bin Laden’s main couriers, guardians, helpers and buffers to the outside world, moved in first, along with their families. By the end of 2005, Bin Laden and at least three of his wives and several young children had arrived and had been settled. Bin Laden’s older children, their spouses and children came and went over the next half-dozen years.
READ MORE: How the Sixth SEAL Team took out Osama Bin Laden
4. They lived in extreme isolation and self-sufficiency
Life in the Abbottabad hideout was designed to be as self-sufficient and self-sufficient as possible, to minimize contact with the outside world. The compound lacked phone or internet service – too easy to follow – but had satellite dishes allowing residents to watch old televisions found later.
Residents burned their garbage rather than putting it for collection. Bin Laden’s son Khalid did much of the maintenance, and the compound had chickens, goats, rabbits, bees, cows and vegetable gardens. Bin Laden’s grandchildren, whom he himself educated, took part in market gardening competitions for small prizes he awarded.
Bin Laden’s family lived in isolation even from the al-Kuwaiti brothers and their families, with a locked metal door at the base of the stairwell leading to the terrorist’s rooms. Only the two couriers regularly left the compound to run errands, go to the mosque and occasionally attend funerals, weddings or other local ceremonies. Even local children were not allowed to enter the compound. When a boy accidentally hit a ball over the perimeter fence, Bin Laden’s entourage gave him more than double the amount needed to get a new ball, rather than letting him recover the ball lost.
READ MORE: Why did US forces bury Osama Bin Laden’s body at sea?
May 3, 2011: Pakistanis and international and local media gather outside the compound of Osama Bin Laden, where he was killed the day before in a US special forces raid, in Abottabad, Pakistan.
Getty Images
5. Their life was austere, with western touches
The residents of the compound lived modestly, without air conditioning during hot summers and sleeping on foam mattresses. Bin Laden’s wardrobe included three Pakistani-style outfits for summer and three more for winter, and a single sweater.
But when the al-Kuwaiti brothers visited local bazaars, they were stocking up not only with naan bread and basic items, but also Coca-Cola, Pepsi and sweets, store owners later said. . The compound was stocking brand name drugs, including Calpol, a UK brand of pain and fever medication for children. Bin Laden’s computer included downloads of popular Disney movies and American video games. The terrorist leader even kept a stash of Just for Men hair dye to cover the gray of his hair and beard.
READ MORE: 9 Unexpected Things Navy SEALS Discovered Inside Osama Bin Laden’s Compound
6. Bin Laden confined to a small space
Two of the rooms on the upper floors became Bin Laden’s media center. On the back of a door, he hung the thobe (an Arab man’s robe) that he had put on while filming videos to distribute to subscribers. A snub-nosed Kalashnikov, a memento of his days fighting against Russian invaders in Afghanistan, rested on a shelf above the door. Yellow floral curtains shielded the room from curious glances, and the walls were filled with hundreds of tapes (audio and video) neatly organized in rows.
Bin Laden devoted hours every day to follow the news of the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan, troubled only by the racketeering of the small children of the precinct. Eventually, he rebelled against the indoors detention, sending his son Khalid to buy him a wide-brimmed hat, like a cowboy hat, which would obscure his features if he went out late in the day. Khalid also oversaw the construction of a gazebo and trellis that would prevent a satellite from getting a clear image of its face or physique.
7. They used tricks to evade local authorities
The al-Kuwaiti brothers disguised the number of people living in the compound by ensuring that no less than four separate electricity meters were installed. Yet a Pakistani commission of inquiry, whose report was later obtained by Al Jazeera, concluded that bin Laden “was extremely lucky not to come across anyone determined to do his job honestly, or there was a complete collapse of local governance ”. The local authority sold the first plots of land without verifying the identity of the buyer, and no one followed up on the construction of a third-floor extension without a building permit.
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8. Bin Laden’s mails wanted
Even as the Americans prepared to launch their attack on the precinct, relations were breaking within its walls. Exhausted from meeting the needs of a fluctuating but ever-increasing number of confined bin Laden family members and those of their own growing families, the al-Kuwaiti brothers issued an ultimatum to the al-Qaeda leader. They would start looking for loyalists to replace them in their roles as secretary / guard / courier / liaison with the outside world – and Osama would agree not to add a fourth wife to the household or increase the number of those for whom the brothers were responsible. . .
Before the conflict was fully resolved and a new routine was established, SEAL’s Six Team arrived by helicopter on the night of May 2, 2011, and Osama, the al-Kuwaiti brothers, and some members of their family. were dead.
