By ROBERT MACKEY
Updated | 11:33 a.m. Three of Osama bin Laden’s wives, who survived the American raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and are now in Pakistan’s custody, were “hostile” when they spoke to United States intelligence officials this week, American and Pakistani officials told CNN.
An American official in Islamabad told The Guardian that a Bin Laden daughter was also among those interviewed by American interrogators on Tuesday or Wednesday in the presence of officials from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. The unnamed official confirmed that the women displayed a hostile attitude, which, he said, was “not overly surprising considering that we had killed their husband or father.”
American officials identified the three widows to CNN as Bin Laden’s second, third and fifth wives: Khairiah Sabar, who has been known as Umm Hamza since she gave birth to a son named Hamza; Siham Sabar, who is known as Umm Khaled; and Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, who is also known as Amal Ahmed al-Sadah.
Officials told both news organizations that the oldest of the three wives spoke for all of them.
According to Lawrence Wright’s book “The Looming Tower,” Umm Hamza, a well-educated Saudi woman with a Ph.D. in child psychology who became Bin Laden’s second wife, was seven years older than her husband, and the oldest of the five women he married. Umm Khaled is also a Saudi woman with a doctorate, in Arabic grammar. The youngest of the widows is a 29-year-old from Yemen who was reportedly shot in the leg during the raid in the bedroom where Bin Laden was shot and killed. She was found by Pakistani security officers with her daughter, Safiya, who is about 12.
As The Lede explained last week, Pakistani officials said that they found four dead bodies at the compound after the raid. While it remains uncertain exactly who the four other people killed by the American commandos were, journalists have noted that one of the dead men, seen in an extremely graphic, bloody photograph sold to Reuters on Thursday by a Pakistani official who arrived at the compound soon after the raid, does bear a resemblance to Osama bin Laden.
There has been speculation that the photograph might show the remains of one of Bin Laden’s sons, either Hamza or Khaled.
According to a report from CBS News, American officials don’t need to rely on the women for information about the raid itself, since the whole operation was filmed on 25 cameras mounted on the helmets of the Navy Seals. (Last year, the Dutch military released video of a raid on Somali pirates recorded on similar helmet-mounted cameras.) The women, however, if they chose to, could presumably help answer questions about who knew that Al Qaeda’s leader was hiding in a town filled with current and former members of Pakistan’s military.
thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/u-s-interrogated-hostile-bin-laden-wives/
An American official in Islamabad told The Guardian that a Bin Laden daughter was also among those interviewed by American interrogators on Tuesday or Wednesday in the presence of officials from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. The unnamed official confirmed that the women displayed a hostile attitude, which, he said, was “not overly surprising considering that we had killed their husband or father.”
American officials identified the three widows to CNN as Bin Laden’s second, third and fifth wives: Khairiah Sabar, who has been known as Umm Hamza since she gave birth to a son named Hamza; Siham Sabar, who is known as Umm Khaled; and Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, who is also known as Amal Ahmed al-Sadah.
Officials told both news organizations that the oldest of the three wives spoke for all of them.
According to Lawrence Wright’s book “The Looming Tower,” Umm Hamza, a well-educated Saudi woman with a Ph.D. in child psychology who became Bin Laden’s second wife, was seven years older than her husband, and the oldest of the five women he married. Umm Khaled is also a Saudi woman with a doctorate, in Arabic grammar. The youngest of the widows is a 29-year-old from Yemen who was reportedly shot in the leg during the raid in the bedroom where Bin Laden was shot and killed. She was found by Pakistani security officers with her daughter, Safiya, who is about 12.
As The Lede explained last week, Pakistani officials said that they found four dead bodies at the compound after the raid. While it remains uncertain exactly who the four other people killed by the American commandos were, journalists have noted that one of the dead men, seen in an extremely graphic, bloody photograph sold to Reuters on Thursday by a Pakistani official who arrived at the compound soon after the raid, does bear a resemblance to Osama bin Laden.
There has been speculation that the photograph might show the remains of one of Bin Laden’s sons, either Hamza or Khaled.
According to a report from CBS News, American officials don’t need to rely on the women for information about the raid itself, since the whole operation was filmed on 25 cameras mounted on the helmets of the Navy Seals. (Last year, the Dutch military released video of a raid on Somali pirates recorded on similar helmet-mounted cameras.) The women, however, if they chose to, could presumably help answer questions about who knew that Al Qaeda’s leader was hiding in a town filled with current and former members of Pakistan’s military.
thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/13/u-s-interrogated-hostile-bin-laden-wives/
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