Pakistan Report: Nobody Knew bin Laden Was There

After investigating for a year and a half, an independent Pakistani inquiry concludes that the government can't be blamed for Osama bin Laden's presence in the country for a very simple reason: No one knew he was there. The Daily Telegraph doesn't expect the claim to sit well with the West, noting that some in the US have suggested the judicial commission isn't telling the whole story. "If Pakistan had taken this breach of sovereignty seriously—by which I mean the head of al-Qaeda sitting in a cantonment so close to the capital—we should have seen a very vigorous investigation," says a Georgetown analyst. "This was a joke."

The report "really doesn't tell us much more than we already knew," adds a US official. "It's a disappointment for those who thought this episode might represent a turning point for Pakistan's relationship with extremist groups." The report appears more interested in the Navy SEALs' breach of Pakistani sovereignty than in bin Laden himself, the official says. The report does note that bin Laden became even more reclusive in his last weeks after he was spotted by the daughter of one of his couriers, whose families also lived in the Abbottabad compound. He stayed indoors from that point, ditching the exercise routine he'd had in a covered portion of the compound's courtyard. (More Osama bin Laden stories.)