Osama wife stayed in hideout for 6 years, says Pakistani official

ISLAMABAD—One of three wives living with Osama bin Laden has told Pakistani interrogators she had been staying in the al-Qaida chief’s hideout for six years without leaving its upper floors, a Pakistani intelligence official said on Friday.

The woman, identified as Yemini-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, and the other two wives of Bin Laden are being interrogated in Pakistan after they were taken into custody following the American raid on Bin Laden’s compound in the town of Abbottabad.

Pakistani authorities are also holding eight or nine children who were found there after the US commandos left. The corpses of at least three slain men were also left behind.

The wives’ accounts will help show how Bin Laden spent his time and how he managed to avoid capture, living in a large house close to military academy in a garrison town, a two-and-a-half hours’ drive from the capital Islamabad.

Given shifting and incomplete accounts from US officials about what happened during the raid, the women’s testimonies may also be significant in unveiling details about the operation.

A Pakistani official said CIA officers had not been given access to the women in custody. Military and intelligence relations between the United States and Pakistan have been strained even before Monday’s helicopter-borne raid, and have become more so in the aftermath.

The Pakistani intelligence official did not say on Friday whether the Yemeni wife has said that Bin Laden was also living there since 2006. A security official said she was shot in the leg during the operation, and did not witness her husband being killed.

“We are still getting information from them,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give his name to the media.  <strong><em>AP</strong></em>