Osama wanted to leave Pak house before US raid

Washington, May 21

Frustrated by living in isolation in a safe house in Pakistan's Abbottabad town, Osama bin Laden wanted to move to another location months before the US commando raid that claimed his life. Months before he was finally found by the CIA and killed, bin Laden wrote that it might be time for him to move.

In a letter voicing deep frustration with the isolation at his compound in Abbottabad, the Al-Qaida leader wrote: “I think that I have to leave them,” referring to the two Pakistani brothers who sheltered and and served him. 

“But it will take few months to arrange another place where you, Hamza, and his wife can join us. I ask for your forgiveness and I hope you will understand the situation and pray that God makes it easy to reunite, God willing,” Osama wrote to his wife Khairiyah. Less than six months later, in May 2011, US SEALs descended on the compound, killing bin Laden. The letter is part of the trove of newly-declassified documents recovered during the raid on bin Laden's compound that were released yesterday. — PTI