Land for Osama den for Rs 21 lakh,contractor held

As Pakistan sought to counter suspicions it had been harbouring bin Laden,details emerged today about the small group of men who looked after the al-Qaeda chief in this northwestern town. Chief among them was a man known as Arshad Khan,who neighbours said was one of two Pakistani men living in the house. Property records obtained by AP show Mohammad Arshad bought adjoining plots in four stages between 2004 and 2005 for 48,000 about Rs 21 lakh. The two appear to be the same person,and the names may be fake.

Pak authorities today detained and questioned the contractor who built the compound. Noor Muhammad,also known as Gul Madah or Mithu Khan,was picked up from his residence near Bilal Town,where bin Ladens compound is located,TV news channels reported. Between 45 and 50 years old,he was released in the afternoon after being questioned at an undisclosed location. Muhammad told Geo News that he began constructing the compound after the 2005 earthquake. It was completed in about 18 months,he said. He said he was given the plans for the compound and funds by Arshad Khan.

The doctor,Qazi Mahfooz Ul Haq,said he sold a plot of land to Arshad in 2005. He said the buyer was a sturdily built man who had a tuft of hair under his lower lip. He spoke with an accent that sounded like it was from Waziristan,a tribal region close to Afghanistan that is home to many al-Qaeda operatives.

Arshad may have been one of the five people killed in the raid,including bin Laden and one of his sons. US officials have said bin Ladens most trusted courier,and the couriers wife and brother also died. It is still unclear what the connection was between Arshad and the courier,who eventually led the US to bin Laden,or if they were,in fact,the same person.

US officials identified the courier as Sheikh Abu Ahmed,a Pakistani man born in Kuwait who went by the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. They obtained his name from detainees held in CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe and vetted it with top al-Qaeda operatives like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The courier was so important to al-Qaeda that he was tapped by Mohammed to shepherd the man who was to have been the 20th hijacker through computer training needed for the 9/11 attacks,according to newly released documents from Guantanamo Bay interrogations.

The courier allegedly trained Maad al-Qahtani at an internet cafe in Karachi in July 2001 so that he could communicate by email with Mohammed Atta. But al-Qahtani proved to be a poor student and was ultimately denied entry to the US. The Guantanamo documents also revealed that the courier might have been one of the men who accompanied bin Laden to Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan in December 2001 weeks before the Talibans surrender.

Meanwhile,Indonesia said its most wanted terrorist suspect was in Abbottabad to meet Osama bin Laden when he was arrested there early this year. The remark is the strongest indication yet that the arrest of Patek,an al-Qaeda operative wanted for the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings,may have been connected to the bin Laden raid.