CIA team visits Osama hideout; searches for over six hours

The CIA team which flew to the spot in a helicopter scoured the three storied complex for more than six hours in the compound.

By PTI | Updated: May 28, 2011, 05.15 PM IST

ISLAMABAD: A CIA forensic team has carried out an extensive search of slain al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad hideout hunting for concealed chambers where he might have stashed his terror blueprints.

The CIA team which flew to the spot in a helicopter scoured the three storied complex for more than six hours in the compound, 'The Dawn' reported.

According to the report, police and other sources did not confirm the visit, but 'The Express Tribune' quoting their sources said that more than five CIA forensic experts were flown into Abbottabad.

The team scoured the heavily-guarded compound in Bilal Town for an hour for additional clues, for example, evidence hidden in walls or buried under floors or elsewhere in the compound.

Sleuths of Pakistan's spy agencies accompanied the CIA experts who reportedly used sophisticated equipment to scour the compound, looking for clues, the report said.

Police was tasked to make a second cordon 600 feet away from the bin Laden compound.

Media persons were barred from covering the trip and television cameramen were not allowed to film the compound even from a distance. The visit comes after Pakistani authorities granted the Pentagon's request to allow CIA experts to visit the compound where bin Laden had reportedly lived undetected for years.

Yesterday's visit by the CIA team was first for the agency sleuths 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 before bin Laden was killed in the operation undertaken by US Navy SEALS commandos on May 2.

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