How the US pulled it off

The veil is being pulled back on how the United States tracked down and killed Osama Bin Laden. The New York Times reveals that the intelligence trail started with information obtained from a Guantanamo Bay detainee about the courier that Bin Laden used to pass and receive messages to the outside world. This is proof that the public debate about the utility of Guantanamo is far too glib.

This courier was then tracked down last August to the compound, in Abbottabad which was so secure and grand that the Americans realised that it could well be Bin Laden’s hide-out. These suspicions were reinforced when it became clear that this million dollar compound, built in 2005, had no telephone or internet connection and that its inhabitants incinerated their own rubbish.

Once US intelligence had established to their satisfaction that Bin Laden was there, the planning that culminated in yesterday’s raid began.