US SEALs ‘pocket guide’ left behind in bin Laden hideout

Osama bin Laden

By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |
A document provided to members of the US Navy SEALs who assassinated Osama bin Laden, was left behind in bin Laden’s compound by mistake, and has reportedly been accessed by The London Times. It contains remarkably detailed descriptions of the compound’s occupants and frequent visitors, including their ages and legal names, all the way down to bin Laden’s wives, children and grandchildren. It also details the approximate timing of the arrival of each of the compound’s residents, as well as the precise location of their bedrooms and living quarters. Furthermore, the guidebook discusses the possibility that bin Laden’s youngest wife, Amal Ahmed Abdel-Fatah al-Sada, who also lived in the compound, may have given birth to twins in recent years. Remarkably, the pocket guide, which must have been carried by every member of the SEALs team that attacked the al-Qaeda founder’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, earlier this month, describes even bin Laden’s usual clothing preferences. It states that he “[a]lways wears light-colored shawal kameez with a dark vest” and that he “occasionally wears light-colored prayer cap”. The British paper speculates that the extent of detailed information in the document points almost certainly to the existence of at least one mole inside the compound, who must have shared this information with the Americans. The other possibility, according to The Times, is that “US drone technology is far more sophisticated than hitherto realized”. But the article also quotes retired CIA officer Glenn Carle, who suggests the information contained in the document could have been collated from a variety of human and technical sources of intelligence.