CIA to search Abbottabad Laden compound

Pakistan has agreed to allow the CIA to send a forensics team to examine the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, giving the agency permission to use sophisticated equipment in a search for al-Qaeda materials that might have been hidden inside walls or buried at the site, The Washington Post reports quoting US officials.

The arrangement would allow the CIA for the first time to enter a complex that it had previously scrutinised only from a distance, using satellites, stealth drones and spies operating from a nearby safe house that was shuttered when bin Laden was killed.

US officials said, the Post reports, a CIA team is expected to arrive at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, within days, and that the objective is to scrub the site for items that were not recovered by American commandos during the raid or Pakistani security forces who secured the facility in the aftermath.

“The assault team was there for only 40 minutes,” a US official said. The aim is to return to the site “to do another, more thorough, look.” The officials, like others interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

According to the Washington Post report, CIA Deputy Director Michael J Morell negotiated access to the Abbottabad site during a trip to Islamabad last week, when he met with the head of Pakistan’s main intelligence service, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, officials said.

Pakistan’s agreement is seen as an encouraging sign that the two spy services will continue cooperating despite anger in Islamabad over the American operation to kill bin Laden, and a series of recent ruptures between the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart.