When details emerged confirming the killing of the Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, one of the biggest shocks was that he was discovered living in another country from that which most Americans — even experts in the media — assumed he would be hiding. As the War on Terror gained pace in the months following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. military turned its attention to Afghanistan, the country in the Middle East where Al Qaeda was based. It was in Afghanistan that the terror group had trained many of its members, and where its leader was believed to be hiding.
The U.S. moved to neutralize Al Qaeda through various military operations including the war in Afghanistan. In the years that followed, reports emerged claiming that various senior figures in Al Qaeda had been killed in combat or drone strikes, while occasionally it was also rumored that U.S. forces had finally ascertained the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden himself. Each time, however, it was reported he escaped his pursuer’s grasp.
It was deeply disturbing for many Americans when the truth of bin Laden’s hiding place emerged, along with the information that despite all of the U.S. military’s best efforts he had somehow evaded capture in Afghanistan and been smuggled into neighboring Pakistan. Bin Laden’s compound was custom-built by his allies, who bought several plots of land in peaceful Abbottabad, and then went on to shock the locals by constructing a fortified residence with a 18 foot perimeter wall, defended by barbed wire. The residential portion of the building was almost windowless.
