Osama bin Laden killed: phonecall by courier led US to their That monitored phone call ended a years-long search for bin Laden's personal courier, the key break in a worldwide manhunt. The courier, in turn, led US intelligence to a walled compound in northeast Pakistan, where a team of Navy SEALs shot bin Laden to death.The violent final minutes were the culmination of years of intelligence work. Inside the CIA team hunting bin Laden, it always was clear that bin Laden's vulnerability was his couriers. He was too smart to let al-Qaeda foot soldiers, or even his senior commanders, know his hideout. But if he wanted to get his messages out, somebody had to carry them, someone bin Laden trusted with his life.Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, detainees in the CIA's secret prison network told interrogators about an important courier with the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti who was close to bin Laden. After the CIA captured al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he confirmed knowing al-Kuwaiti but denied he had anything to do with al-Qaeda.Then in 2004, top al-Qaeda operative Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq. Ghul told the CIA that al-Kuwaiti was a courier, someone crucial to the terrorist organisation. In particular, Ghul said, the courier was close to Faraj al-Libi, who replaced Mohammed as al-Qaeda's operational commander. It was a key break in the hunt for bin Laden's personal courier."Hassan Ghul was the linchpin," a US official said.It took years of work before the CIA identified the courier's real name: Sheikh Abu Ahmed, a Pakistani man born in Kuwait. When they did identify him, he was nowhere to be found. The CIA's sources didn't know where he was hiding. Bin Laden was famously insistent that no phones or computers be used near him, so the eavesdroppers at the National Security Agency kept coming up cold.
11-12-2011, 07:57
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