For the U.S. intelligence investigators trying to find the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden, leads were scarce. For years, their only real information came from interrogating suspects, sometimes as far away as Eastern Europe, and they had little in the way of physical evidence as to where he might actually be. Yet, once investigators were hot on the trail of Sheikh Abu Ahmed, all that began to change. In July 2010, CIA associates in Pakistan positively identified Ahmed while he was in Peshawar, and soon they began surveillance on his travels.
Eventually, this led them to a compound in Abbottabad, which raised all kinds of red flags. The walls of the compound were very high, much higher than any of the neighbors could see over, and topped with barbed wire, and there were no telephone or internet lines — possibly in an attempt to avoid tracking. The complex had been built sometime in 2004, after Bin Laden is thought to have crossed the border near the Tora Bora mountains, and was known to be home to a pair of wealthy Pashtun brothers, Arshad and Tareq Khan.
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It took the CIA a few months to confirm their suspicions, but by February, it seemed pretty clear that Bin Laden was hiding out at the compound. Surprisingly, he was hiding in plain sight, but that wouldn’t last long.
