Lindsey Hilsum describes the doubts and growing distrust in Pakistan in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death.
Bit by bit we’re building up a picture of Osama bin Laden’s life in his walled compound in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad.
None of the neighhbours ever met him, because he never went out and they were never allowed in. A local farmer, Khurhid Khan, told me today that the only people who emerged from the house were Arshad and Tarek Khan, the brothers who apparently built the compound in 2005.
“Their movements were very restricted,” he said. “They just would go to the market to get vegetables and to the mosque. They travelled in two four-wheel drive vehicles.”
The Americans say Arshan Khan was Osama bin Laden’s courier, carrying his messages to Al Qaeda operatives and the rest of the leadership.
Khurhid Khan told me that the brothers spoke with Waziri accents, and said they had sold up in Waziristan because of the insurgency there. Abbottabad was deemed a safe place. They built high walls because their women lived in purdah. If the walls were higher than necessary, that was maybe because they still feared enemies from their home area.
So bin Laden skulked in the house, surrounded by two wives and up to 23 children. He was seemingly in a kind of purdah himself. US intelligence has it that he was sick, needing kidney dialysis. Medicine bottles were found inside, but there’s no way of knowing if they were his or someone else’s. Around the compound, there were a few buffalos and cows, and – according to one Pakistani newspaper – 150 chickens. Another man I met today said the compound received a milk delivery everyday, and it’s been reported that two nurses, who gave polio vaccinations to the children, are being questioned by Pakistani police.
The compound is now a tourist attraction, and it’s hard to imagine him in there, living a simple, domestic life, isolated from the outside world.
Now the outside world is all around, gawping. Yesterday, little boys were picking up bits of the American helicopter which came down during the raid. Today they’re selling the parts to anyone who’ll pay a few rupees.
But most people I met near the compound today simply don’t believe Osama bin Laden was ever there.
“It’s all for Obama’s election campaign,” they say. They’re not even sure they’d believe a photograph, should Americans finally produce one. And anti-Americanism seems to be growing. There’s strong resentment of the unilateral nature of the US action.
“They say they’re’ our friends, but in their hearts they’re not,” said a retired army officer.
The provincial leader of the Islamist party Jamat Islamiya seemed to reflect the views of many people I’ve met.
“We don’t know yet whether Osama bin Laden was there,” he said. “We think it’s a drama. But if it’s true, and they have killed him, then it’s the right time for the Americans to leave the region. We think the Americans are the terrorists.”