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The last hideout of the United States' most wanted terrorist, Osama bin Laden, appeared peaceful the day after U.S. Navy SEALs killed bin Laden Monday during a predawn raid on his fortified compound in Abbottabad (map), Pakistan.
It's shocking that bin Laden was found in this Pakistani army-garrison town just 72 miles (116 kilometers) north of the city of Islamabad, according to Don Belt, National Geographic magazine's former senior foreign affairs editor. Belt has briefed the U.S. Congress on Pakistan and visited Abbottabad many times.
That's because the picturesque town is home to thousands of troops, and it's neither a Taliban stronghold nor a vast, hard-to-search metropolis.
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Bin Laden's Backyard
Photograph by Aamir Qureshi, AFP/Getty Images
Pakistani soldiers stand guard Monday outside the fortified mansion where U.S. forces found and killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden the night before.
“It’s right smack dab in the middle of a military garrison,” Belt said of bin Laden’s refuge. “There are thousands of troops stationed there. There’s a military academy a mile [1.6 kilometers] or so from the compound where he was hiding out.
"I just have a hard time believing that somebody in the Pakistani military didn’t know he was there—especially if he’d been there for several years."
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Bin Laden's Bed?
Photograph from ABC News/AP
Now bloodstained, this room—pictured in a still from video captured Monday—is among those where Osama bin Laden spent his final days.
"Most of the theories about his whereabouts focused on either tribal areas [along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border] or a large city," Belt said. "Many tribal areas are controlled by the Taliban, and the assumption was that he was living in a walled compound out there or in the vast, teeming slums of some vast city like Karachi (map), where he could disappear among some 15 million people who live there.
“Probably the mix in Abbottabad includes some militants," Belt added, "but it’s not any kind of a hotbed, not by a long shot."
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