Osama depended on couriers to keep in touch with outside world

The material seized from his hideout included digital,audio and video files,printed items,computer equipment,recording devices and handwritten documents,which US officials say were the single largest collection of material from a senior terrorist ever.

His once-large entourage of Arab bodyguards was down to one trusted Pakistani courier and the courier’s brother,who also had the job of buying goats,sheep and Coca-Cola for the household.

While his physical world had shrunk to two indoor rooms and daily pacing in his courtyard,bin Laden was still revered at home — by his three wives,by his children and by the tight,interconnected circle of loyalists in the compound.

American officials say there is much they do not know about the last years of bin Laden,who was shot dead by Navy Seal commandos last Monday in his third-floor bedroom,and the peculiar life of the compound.

Bin Laden,who was the tall man CIA officers watched pacing the courtyard from a surveillance post nearby,never went out. The neighbours knew the family as Arshad Khan and Tariq Khan,the aliases of the trusted courier and his brother. The courier also went by the name Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.

The Khans seemed pleasant enough,but they kept to themselves behind their 12-foot concrete walls and barbed wire,neighbours said.

The brothers,both in their 30s,offered various explanations to the neighbours about their comparative wealth,once saying they had a hotel in Dubai or that they worked in the money-changing business. They were Pashtuns from Charsadda,in Pakistan’s northwest frontier.

The courier and his brother,both killed in the raid,were sons of a man bin Laden had known for decades. A bin Laden son,Khalid,who lived in the home and was also killed,was married to a sister of the Khans,Pakistani officials

said.