Osama bin Laden's neighbors in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad say the al Qaeda leader didn't show his face outside of his walled compound, and those he lived with were polite but standoffish when they ventured into view. A local revenue official in Abbottabad, who's responsible for land records, confirmed that the property was in the name of "Arshad Khan," who purchased the plot in 2005. That was a pseudonym used by bin Laden's courier, who inadvertently led the U.S. to Abbottabad, according to U.S. officials. He and his brother were Pakistani citizens, but also Pashtuns born in Kuwait. They may have been among those killed in the raid that killed bin Laden. "We just used to greet him and call him 'Khan Sahib'," said Mohammed Ali, 33, whose house is about 500 yards across the fields from the compound. "You won't find anyone close to Arshad Khan," Mr. Ali said.
Before Mr. Khan built the house, the plot was just farmland, used for growing vegetables, according to several neighbors. Several neighbors said they used to see two middle-aged men, and sometimes children, coming and going from the house, mainly to buy groceries. "By outward appearance, they looked like Pashtuns," said Aziz Khan, 26, a high-school math teacher whose house is a stone's throw from the compound. "We did not ask them questions as many Pashtuns are very conservative and don't want to talk about their families. It's also not strange for them to have high walls and barbed wire."
The Pashtun ethnic group formed the base of the Taliban regime that sheltered bin Laden and other al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan as they planned the Sept. 11 attacks. These days, the Pashtun form the core of the insurgency fighting against the Afghan government and its international supporters.
Zain Mohammed, 80, whose tiny ramshackle house is the closest to the compound, said some of the residents used to go shopping in two vehicles, but he could not remember what kind.
Shakeel Aktar, 33, runs a mosque a few hundred yards from the compound, but says he never met its occupants. They did not appear interested in establishing links with the local community and had never been to his mosque, he said.
"But if we had known that Osama bin Laden was there, we'd have expressed love and sympathy for him," Mr. Aktar said. "He's a martyr."
Mohammed Azfar Nisar, 28, assistant coordination officer, a local government post in Abbottabad said it was common for people not to know much about their neighbors.
He said there had been a huge influx of Pashtuns from neighboring regions since an earthquake devastated much of the area in 2005.
"Traditionally in our society, people know where everyone lives, but these days in many neighborhoods, people don't have a clue who their neighbors are," he said.
Mr. Nisar also said it was customary for conservative Pashtuns, who are often polygamous, to house a dozen women in one home without neighbors knowing.
And he said that although the army had a large presence in the city, soldiers rarely ventured off base because of the nationwide threat of militant attacks.
However, he also said new foreign arrivals were likely to be noticed as there were only about 170 foreigners officially registered as living in Abbottabad, who were mostly Chinese and Japanese, but no Arabs.
He said that although other militants had been discovered in Abbottabad, the town itself was relatively liberal with hundreds of girls' schools and no history of militant or sectarian violence.
By JEREMY PAGE
From: http://online.wsj.com/
Documents found at Osama Bin Laden's Pakistan home suggest he was planning new attacks on the US, including on the 9/11 anniversary, US reports say.
One plan aimed to target a US rail route, the reports said, although no imminent threat was detected. Officials are examining computers, DVDs and documents seized from the Abbottabad home where they believe Bin Laden hid for up to six years. President Obama is due to meet some of the troops involved in the operation.
He will hold private meetings on Friday at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, with at least some of the Navy Seals who took part in the raid. On Thursday, the president visited the site of the attack of 11 September 2001 in New York, laying a wreath in memory of the nearly 3,000 victims who died at Ground Zero, and speaking to relatives at the site.
He told victims' families that justice had now been done, but that America "would never forget".
Derail plan
Bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who had been top of the US most wanted list since the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, was killed by US special forces in northern Pakistan on Monday. His body was then buried at sea from a US aircraft carrier.
Information about the apparent plans unearthed in Pakistan was contained in a joint FBI and Homeland Security bulletin, the Associated Press said. The bulletin, circulated to law enforcement officials, said the idea to tamper with an unspecified US railway track was found in handwritten notes taken from Bin Laden's compound. According to the bulletin al-Qaeda operatives planned to derail a train so that it would plunge into a valley, or from a bridge, AP reported.
"While it is clear that there was some level of planning for this type of operation in February 2010, we have no recent information to indicate an active ongoing plot to target transportation and no information on possible locations or specific targets," the warning read. One intelligence official said the notes revealed the ambition to hit the US with large-scale attacks in major cities and on key dates such as anniversaries and holidays...more on BBC.CO.UK
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