ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan - Osama bin Laden made his final stand in a small Pakistani city where three army regiments with thousands of soldiers are based not far from the capital - a location that is increasing suspicions in Washington that Islamabad may have been sheltering him.
The U.S. acted alone in Monday's helicopter raid, did not inform Pakistan until it was over and pointedly did not thank Pakistan at the end of a wildly successful operation. All this suggests more strain ahead in a relationship that was already suffering because of U.S. accusations that the Pakistanis are supporting Afghan militants and Pakistani anger over American drone attacks and spy activity.
Pakistani intelligence agencies are normally very sharp in sniffing out the presence of foreigners in small cities.
For years, Western intelligence has said bin Laden was most likely holed up in a cave along the Pakistan-Afghan border, a remote region of soaring mountains and thick forests where the Pakistan army has little presence. But the 10-year hunt for the world's most-wanted man ended in a whitewashed, three-story house in a middle-class area of Abbottabad, a leafy resort city of 400,000 people nestled in pine-forested hills less than 35 miles from the national capital, Islamabad.
People are also reading…
Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said bin Laden's location meant Pakistan has "a lot of explaining to do."
"I think this tells us once again that unfortunately Pakistan at times is playing a double game," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the Armed Services Committee.
A senior Pakistan intelligence official dismissed speculation that bin Laden was being protected.
"We don't explain it. We just did not know - period," he said, on the condition his name not be released to the media.
It was unclear how long bin Laden had been holed up in the house with members of his family.
The compound, which an Obama administration official said was "custom-built to hide someone of significance," was about a half-mile away from the Kakul Military Academy, one of several military installations in the bustling town.
"Personally I feel that he must have thought it was the safest area," said Asad Munir, a former station chief of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, in the northwest. "Abbottabad is a place no one would expect him to live."
Suspicions that Pakistan harbors militants have been a major source of mistrust between the CIA and Pakistan's ISI, though the two agencies have cooperated in the arrests of al-Qaida leaders since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
"Why had Pakistan not spotted he is living in a nice tourist resort just outside Islamabad?" asked Gareth Price, a researcher at Chatham House think-tank in London. "Unless Pakistan can explain why they didn't know, it makes relations difficult."
Relations between Pakistan's main intelligence agency and the CIA had been very strained in recent months after a CIA contractor shot and killed two Pakistanis in January, bringing Pakistani grievances into the open.
Since then, a Pakistani official has said joint operations had been stopped and that the agency was demanding the Americans cut down on drone strikes in the border area.
The U.S. has sent hundreds of drones into the border regions since 2008, taking out senior al-Qaida leaders in a tactic seen by many in Washington as vital to keeping the militant network and allied groups living in havens on defense.
While tensions may run high, it is unlikely that either nation could afford to sever the link completely. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and the U.S. needs Islamabad to begin its withdrawal from Afghanistan this year as planned. Pakistan relies heavily on the United States for military and civilian aid.
Some of the strongest allegations about ISI involvement in sheltering bin Laden were made in Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai has said that more of the American focus should be across the border in Pakistan.
"For years we have said that the fight against terrorism is not in Afghan villages and houses," said Karzai. "It is in safe havens, and today that was shown to be true."
There was no evidence of direct ISI collusion, and American officials did not make any such allegations.
"There are a lot of people within the Pakistan government, and I am not going to speculate about who, or if any of them had foreknowledge about bin Laden being in Abbottabad but certainly its location there outside of the capital raises questions," said White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan.
Some analysts suggested that Pakistan would have little interest in sheltering bin Laden. They contrasted the al-Qaida leader with Afghan Taliban leaders, whom Pakistan views as useful allies in Afghanistan once America withdraws. Al-Qaida has carried out scores of attacks inside Pakistan in recent years.
