2011-05-10 18:03:04
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan has not yet allowed American investigators access to the three widows of Osama bin Laden taken into Pakistani custody after the raid that killed the leader of Al Qaeda, nor shared their own interrogation report, a Pakistani security official said Tuesday.
The official was speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with the rules of his organization.
The Obama administration demanded access to the women, who appear to have been in hiding with Bin Laden for years, and an American official said that Pakistan had promised to comply.
The widows, along with the Pakistani wife of Bin Laden’s trusted courier, and a number of children detained at the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad remain in the hands of the Pakistani security forces. There are conflicting reports as to how many there are and who they are.
Some information given by intelligence officials appears intended to cast doubt on the account of the raid as presented by American officials; none has been independently verified.
Initial reports indicated that 12 women and children were in the compound; it now appears that there were 17.
Pakistani security officials, asking to remain anonymous, say that along with the widows, two from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen, there were 13 children, 8 of them related to Bin Laden. The fourth woman, who was wounded in the raid, indicated to officials who first arrived at the compound that her husband had been killed, according to Asad Munir, a retired brigadier and former intelligence service official.
Bin Laden’s widows have been identified as Um Hamza, or Mother of Hamza, whose real name is Khairiah Sabar, and is from Jidda in Saudi Arabia; Um Khalid, or Mother of Khalid, whose name is Siham, and is from Medina in Saudi Arabia; and the youngest, a Yemeni, Amal al-Saddah, 29.
Bin Laden’s daughter with Ms. Saddah, Safia, who is about 12 years old, is also reported to have been present and even to have witnessed the shooting of her father. Officials have also said that four of the children are Bin Laden’s grandchildren, by a daughter killed in an airstrike in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
