CIA team to visit Osama compound for further search

Washington, May 26: A CIA forensic experts team will fly to Pakistan to search the compound where al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed. The American spy agency will use sophisticated equipment to search for possible Al-Qaeda materials hidden inside the walls at the site.

"US officials said the CIA team may arrive in Pakistan within days and head to the compound in Abbottabad, 120 kms from capital Islamabad, with an objective to scrub the site for items that were not recovered by American commandos," The Washington Post reported.

The CIA has been given the nod by the Pakistan government to enter the complex which it had previously scrutinized only from a distance, using satellites and stealth drones.

The CIA suspects that bin Laden might have created hidden cavities within the complex to store away highly secret al-Qaeda documents. The Navy SEALs team which carried out the operation against al-Qaeda chief only managed to lift hard-discs, computers and other material in the room, where they killed the terror mastermind.

"The assault team was there only for 40 minutes," a US official said. The aim is to return to the site "to do another, more thorough, look."

"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," the Post quoted US officials as saying.

"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," the Post said.

PTI