New York, May 2 (IANS) Osama bin Laden was not hiding in a cave in the mountains of Pakistan as people thought but lived in a massive mansion worth $1 million, the New York Times reported.
CIA officials spent several weeks looking at satellite photos after they tracked down a courier, reportedly having close ties with Osama, entering a compound with a mansion in Abbottabad.
A senior official said that by September 2010 the CIA thought there was a ‘strong possibility’ that Osama himself was hiding there.
The mansion was set on a hilltop and surrounded by 12-foot-high concrete walls topped with barbed wire. The property was valued at $1 million.
US officials believed that the compound, built in 2005, was designed for the specific purpose of hiding bin Laden.
