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NEW DELHI: A vast majority of Pakistan's military leadership is unhappy about the US operation that killed Osama bin Lad

When one of Osama bin Laden's most trusted aides picked up the phone last year, he unknowingly led US pursuers to the doorstep of his boss, the world's most wanted terrorist. That monitored phone call, recounted Monday by a US official, ended a years-long search for bin Laden's personal courier, the key break in a worldwide manhunt. The courier, in turn, led US intelligence to a walled compound 60km from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, where a team of Navy Seals shot him dead. The violent final minutes were the culmination of years of intelligence work. To the CIA team hunting bin Laden, it was always clear that bin Laden's vulnerability was his couriers. He was too smart and too paranoid to let Qaida foot soldiers, or even his senior commanders, know his hideout. But if he wanted to get his messages out, somebody had to carry them, someone bin Laden trusted with his life. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, detainees in the CIA's secret prison network told interrogators about a courier with the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti who was close to Osama. After the CIA captured Qaida's No. 3 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi, he confirmed knowing al-Kuwaiti but denied he had anything to do with al-Qaida. Then in 2004, al-Qaida operative Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq. Ghul told the CIA that al-Kuwaiti was crucial to Qaida. In particular, Ghul said, he was close to Faraj al-Libi, who had replaced Mohammed as al-Qaida's operational commander. It was a key break in the hunt for in bin Laden's personal courier. "Hassan Ghul was the lynchpin," a US official said. Finally, in May 2005, al-Libi was captured. He admitted to the CIA that when he was promoted to succeed Mohammed, he received the word through a courier. But he made up a name for the courier and denied knowing al-Kuwaiti, a denial that was so adamant and unbelievable that the CIA took it as confirmation that he and Mohammed were protecting the courier. It only reinforced the idea that al-Kuwaiti was very important to al-Qaida. If they could find the man known as al-Kuwaiti, they'd find Osama.

                                                                                                               
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