OSAMA bin LADEN HAD BEEN 'HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT' / BBC REPORT: THE RAID
[PHOTO - Who will replace Osama bin Laden?]
MANILA, MAY 2, 2011 (CNN) The death of Osama bin Laden proves that he had been "hiding in plain sight" says CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson.
The U.S. special forces operation that killed bin Laded took place at a mansion in the town of Abbottabad, just over 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the Pakistan capital Islamabad.
"This has been exactly the concern of western officials; that he had been hiding not in a remote border area but in the cities."
The death of bin Laden in Pakistan there will present some difficulties for the government there, said Robertson.
"It's been one of the most difficult and thorniest issues (for the government), what happened if bin Laden is killed on their soil?
Bin Laden's death affects the world
"It would not be difficult to imagine there would be some sort of backlash or protests on the streets there of Islamabad."
The death of bin Laden comes at a time when relations between the U.S. and Pakistan are particularly strained with Pakistani officials angered by U.S. drone strikes in the country. The case of Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who fatally shot two Pakistani men in Lahore in February, also highlighted divisions between Washington and Islamabad.
But Peter Bergen, CNN's national security analyst, believes the bin Laden operation "shows that underneath this actually there is a pretty firm relationship."
"It is highly significant that Pakistan allowed this to happen on their territory so near their capital," he added.
According to a U.S. official the Pakistan authorities had not been informed ahead of the actual raid.
The implications for al Qaeda, bin Laden's terrorist network, are also significant.
"It is unlikely to kill off al Qaeda but it is going to have a huge psychological impact on members of the organization," says Robertson.
"It's likely we'll hear members of the organization on the internet saying they don't believe this; al Qaeda members are going to say this is part of western propaganda until they see some evidence."
Peter Bergen met bin Laden in 1997 and believes that al Qaeda will perhaps be irrecoverably damaged by the death of bin Laden.
"There's no one who can replace him. When you join al Qaeda you pledge a personal oath of allegiance (to him)," he says.
American-Yemeni cleric Anwar al Awlaki plays a leadership role for al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula, but believes Bergen, "(he) is not a major hero to the global jihadi movement who fought the Soviets and U.S. for two decades (like bin Laden)."
FROM THE BBC
THE RAID: WHERE OSAMA bin LADEN WAS HIDING
Details are emerging of how al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was found and killed at a fortified compound on the outskirts of Abbottabad in north-west Pakistan.
The compound is just "a stone's throw" and less than 200 yards from the Pakistan Military Academy, an elite military training centre, which is Pakistan's equivalent to Britain's Sandhurst, one local journalist from Abbottabad told the BBC.
Other reports have put the distance at 800 yards.
But the compound lies well within Abbottabad's military cantonment - it is likely the area would have had a constant and significant military presence and checkpoints.
Pakistan's army chief is a regular visitor to the academy for graduation parades.
The operation began at about 2230 (1730 GMT) and lasted about 45 minutes, military sources told BBC Urdu. Two or three helicopters were seen flying low over the area. Witnesses say it caused panic among local residents.
But an IT consultant living in Abbottabad posted on twitter at about 0100 (2100 GMT) that a helicopter was hovering above Abbottabad. It is thought that he unintentionally tweeted details of what he could hear of the operation as it happened.
Barbed wire and cameras
The target of the operation was the compound, which had at its centre a large three-storey building.
When the helicopters landed outside, men emerged from the aircraft and spoke to locals in Pashto, witnesses told BBC Urdu.
People living in the area, known as Thanda Choha, were told to switch off their lights and not to leave their homes.
Shortly afterwards residents said they heard shots being fired and the sound of heavy firearms.
At some point in the operation one of the helicopters crashed, either from technical failure or having been hit by gunfire from the ground.
The compound was about 3,000 sq yards in size but people from the area told the BBC that it was surrounded by 14ft-high walls, so not much could be seen of what was happening inside.
The walls were topped by barbed wire and contained cameras.
There were two security gates at the house and no phone or internet lines running into the compound, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
'Waziristan Mansion'
After the operation witnesses said all they could see was flames snaking up from inside the house.
[Pakistani military took over the area after the raid]
The forces conducting the operation later emerged from the compound, possibly with somebody who had been inside, local residents told the BBC.
They said that women and children were also living in the compound.
One local resident told the BBC Urdu service that the house was built by a Pashtun man about 10 or 12 years ago and he said that none of the locals were aware of who was really living there
According to one local journalist, the house was known in the area as Waziristani Haveli - or Waziristan Mansion.
The journalist said it was owned by people from Waziristan, the mountainous and inhospitable semi-autonomous tribal area close to the Afghan border, which until now most observers believed to be the hiding place for bin Laden.
This house was in a residential district of Abbottabad's suburbs called Bilal Town and known to be home to a number of retired military officers from the area.
Intelligence officials in the US are quoted by AP as saying that thehouse was custom-built to harbour a major "terrorist" figure.
It says CIA experts analysed whether it could be anyone else but they decided it was almost certainly Bin Laden.
Pakistani troops arrived at the scene after the attack and took over the area.
BBC correspondents say US troops were probably operating out of a base used by US Marines in Tarbela Ghazi, an area close to Abbottabad.
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