U.S. officials say Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, captured last month in Turkey and now in New York, has spent most of the last decade in Iran, in some sort of confinement.

Back in late 2001, as U.S. troops and Afghan tribal forces were dismantling the Taliban control of Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden made a decision.

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He sent his operators, people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Abu Zubaydah to the cities of Pakistan where they were to hide out and plan further attacks against the US.  All of the key players were captured or killed, with the exception of Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's No. 2 who remains at large, having survived at least three Predator attacks.

At the same time, bin Laden sent his top managers, al-Qaida's Management Council, to Iran, arming them with money to bribe their way across the border, according to multiple US and Iranian officials. Bin Laden apparently hoped that the Iranians would see the group not as Sunni terrorists but as "an enemy of my enemy," as one senior U.S. official put it.

Among those who made their way into Iran were Saif al-Adel, al-Qaida’s military director; bin Laden's son Saad; and Abu Ghaith, the group's communications director ... and also bin Laden's son-in-law.

At one point not long after its arrival, this group, numbering in the hundreds with family members and bodyguards, was captured by Iranian authorities. Although senior U.S. officials have told NBC News they did not know the conditions of their confinement — "it was the blackest of black boxes," one former senior U.S. official told NBC News — Iranian officials said the group was "in jail."

One Iranian official, former U.N. ambassador Javad Zarif, told NBC News in the mid-2000s that "no nation has captured as many al-Qaida members as Iran." US officials admit that other than some mundane communications, they were unaware of any significant roles played by the group while in captivity.

"Every once in a while, we would intercept non-operational communications from them to relatives back home. That was it," said a former high-ranking U.S. official.  

The U.S. didn't know where the group was held nor all of the members’ identities. On occasion, there would be reports that all or some had been released, but there was little confirmation. Many in U.S. intelligence believed Iran held onto them for use as bargaining chips and not just with the U.S. They were in effect hostages. If al-Qaida carried out attacks in Iran, as it had in the 1990s, the group could face harm.

On occasion, flurries of intelligence would lead to further investigation, but again without any resolution.

In 2009, Saad bin Laden was killed in a Predator attack in Pakistan, leading to speculation that others had been released. But again, U.S. officials could not determine how many, if any, had been let go.  Moreover, it was not a high priority for the U.S. because the individuals were no longer considered much of a threat since they had been out of action for so long.

Last month, Abu Ghaith was detained in Turkey then was being sent to Kuwait via Jordan. But he was intercepted in Jordan and brought to the U.S., according to U.S. officials. 

According to court documents, he has been charged with conspiracy to kill Americans, including actions related to the 9/11 attacks.

Officials say that Abu Ghaith is unlikely to have any operational information because he has been in Iran for so long.  Now, they admit his intelligence value may be more about his captivity in Iran and whether he was released or escaped.

NBC News Justice Correspondent Pete Williams contributed to this report.

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Read the federal indictment of Abu Ghaith in PDF

 

 

 

Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, who acted as a spokesman for al-Qaida, has been apprehended, transported to New York and charged with conspiracy to kill Americans, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith appeared alongside bin Laden in a 2001 video in which they took responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and warned of more, before he dropped out of sight for more than a decade before his arrest.

"I commend our CIA and FBI, our allies in Jordan, and President Obama for their capture of al-Qaida spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a member of the Homeland Security Committee, who first announced the news. 

---

"I trust he received a vigorous interrogation, and will face swift and certain justice," added King, who is also chairman of the Sub-Committee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.

Prosecutors say from at least May 2001 to around 2002, Abu Ghaith served alongside bin Laden, appearing with him and his then-deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, speaking on behalf of the terrorist organization and in support of its mission, and warning that attacks similar to those of September 11, 2001 would continue.

The government says around May 2001, Abu Ghaith urged individuals at a guest house in Kandahar, Afghanistan, to swear allegiance to bin Laden. On the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, after the terrorist attacks on the United States, bin Laden summoned Abu Ghaith and asked for his assistance. He agreed to provide it.

On the morning of Sept. 12, 2001, Abu Ghaith appeared with bin Laden and Zawahiri, and spoke on behalf of al-Qaida, warning the United States and its allies that "[a] great army is gathering against you" and called upon "the nation of Islam" to do battle against "the Jews, the Christians and the Americans," the court document says.

Also, after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Abu Ghaith delivered a speech in which he addressed the then-U.S. Secretary of State and warned that "the storms shall not stop, especially the Airplanes Storm," and advised Muslims, children, and opponents of the United States "not to board any aircraft and not to live in high rises."

Abu Ghaith arranged to be, and was, successfully smuggled from Afghanistan into Iran in 2002, where he spent most of the decade, U.S. officials said.

Even as government officials applauded the arrest of Abu Ghaith, his transport to the United States stirred controversy among lawmakers who were apparently caught by surprise by the news.

"We believe the administration's decision here to bring this person to New York City, if that's what's happened, without letting Congress know is a very bad precedent to set," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who held a press conference with Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H.

"And when we find somebody like this, this close to bin Laden and the senior al-Qaida leadership, the last thing in the world we want to do, in my opinion, is put them in civilian court. This man should be in Guantanamo Bay," Ayotte said.

"So we're putting the administration on notice," said Graham. "We think that sneaking this guy into the country, clearly going around the intent of Congress when it comes to enemy combatants, will be challenged."

Earlier, in an interview on MSNBC, House Intelligence Chair Mike Rogers, R-Mich., strongly criticized the administration for bringing Abu Ghaith to the United States.

Rogers, a former FBI agent, said that Mirandizing a top al-Qaida suspect and bringing him to the United States for trial creates a host of problems — instead of sending him to the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which was built to handle high value prisoners.

"Al-Qaida leaders captured on the battlefield should not be brought to the United States to stand trial," Rogers said. "We should treat enemy combatants like the enemy. The U.S. court system is not the appropriate venue."

The Obama administration has been trying to clear out Guantanamo and not bring any new prisoners there.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said it's fine with him if Abu Ghaith is put on trial in New York because key state and city officials had been consulted in advance, unlike in the case of terror suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

"Unlike with KSM, Kelly and others had been consulted ahead of time about this and they gave the green light to do it. As you know, (Police Commissioner) Ray Kelly, Mayor (Michael) Bloomberg and I opposed the trial of (Mohammed) in New York and we successfully made sure that didn't happen," said Schumer. "On issues like this, I defer to Commissioner Kelly, and I think the mayor does as well. And he thinks it's OK to do it here, and I'll go by that," Schumer said. 

Jordanian sources confirmed that Abu Ghaith was sent by Turkey via Jordan to Kuwait, and intercepted in Jordan and brought to the U.S.

According to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Turkish officials captured Abu Ghaith in the capital Ankara, where a court ruled he had entered the country illegally with a fake passport. The Turkish government then ostensibly deported Abu Ghaith to his birthplace Kuwait, but arranged for him to transit through Jordan where he was ultimately taken into custody by U.S. law enforcement, the officials said.

U.S. officials told NBC that prior to his interception in Turkey, Abu Ghaith, who dropped out of sight after 2002, had spent most of a decade in Iran.

"Nobody's heard a peep. Some people thought he was being held prisoner in Iran, others thought he might be dead," said Evan Kohlmann, an American counter-terrorism analyst for NBC News. 

NBC News chief Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski and Moufaq Khatib NBC News producer in Jordan contributed to this report.

 

This story was originally published on Thu Mar 7, 2013 11:47 AM EST

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – The brother of the Pakistani doctor imprisoned for helping the CIA to track Osama bin Laden says the family needs protection, and the U.S. government should provide it. 

Jamil Afridi, elder brother to Dr. Shakil Afridi, spoke to NBC News on Monday in Peshawar, after he and his lawyers addressed a group of journalists about his brother's case. 

Pakistan jails doctor who helped CIA track down bin Laden

"My appeal to the U.S. government is that they give Dr. Shakil protection, and give us – his brothers and sisters – protection as well," said Afridi. "We have no protection here."

Dr. Shakil Afridi was arrested in the weeks after the May 2011 U.S. raid on the bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The doctor ran a fake vaccination campaign for U.S. intelligence as part of an attempt to get inside the compound and confirm Bin Laden's location. Though those plans failed, U.S. officials have said Dr. Afridi's efforts did help lead them to bin Laden. 

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Dr. Afridi was tried under a legal system known as the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), which applies only in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas. Trials are conducted by a local government official in consultation with tribal elders, and the accused are not allowed legal representation. Dr. Afridi was convicted on treason charges and sentenced to 33 years in prison. 

His brother dismissed the charges against Dr. Afridi as "false," saying he did nothing against Pakistan's national interest, and that "anything" could happen to him or his family now. 

'Schizophrenic ally': US to ax $33 million in Pakistan aid?

"For one whole year, we had no idea where he was – whether he was alive or dead," said Afridi. "Now they say he's in Central Jail, Peshawar, but we're not allowed to see him."

Dr. Afridi's conviction further complicated already tense relations between the U.S. and Pakistan. U.S. officials demanded his release, claiming his efforts helped to capture an enemy to both Pakistan and the U.S. But Pakistani officials have called Dr. Afridi's decision to work for a foreign intelligence agency a "serious offense." 

U.S. officials say they expect to continue the conversation about Dr. Afridi with their Pakistani counterparts, but the list of unresolved issues between the two countries continues to grow.

Both sides are negotiating the re-opening of the overland NATO supply routes that run through Pakistan – shuttered since last November – and the Pakistan government also is calling  for a complete halt on all U.S. drone strikes within the country. In the last week alone, there have been four strikes carried out in the border region with Afghanistan. 

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Judicial Watch has released hundreds of Defense Department and CIA communications that reveal the Obama administration leaked classified information to filmmakers on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Judicial Watch claims the secrets were provided for a film on the bin Laden raid that was first scheduled to be released Oct. 12, just in time to boost the president's image shortly before the November elections. Sony Pictures has since pushed the release back to December.

According to the documents, the filmmakers were granted access to a Navy SEAL captain who was the "planner, operator and commander of SEAL Team Six," which killed bin Laden.  In one memo one of the filmmakers says he had a "good meeting with Brennan and McDonough" and says "they were forward leaning, sharing their point of view on command and control."

---

John Brennan is the president's chief counterterrorism adviser, and Denis McDonough is deputy national security adviser.

In putting the filmmakers together with the SEAL Team Six commander on the raid, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers writes in one document, "The only thing I ask is that you not reveal his name in any way ... because he shouldn't be talking out of school." 

The filmmakers include Kathryn Bigelow, Academy Award-winning director of "The Hurt Locker," and screenwriter Mark Boal.

Pentagon Press Secretary George Little told NBC News on Tuesday that the Defense Department and other agencies regularly engage with the entertainment industry to inform book and movie projects.

"Many individuals in the industry expressed interest in developing projects on what can only be described as one of the top intelligence and military successes of a generation," Little said. "Our engagement on these projects was driven by a desire to inform the public, not by timing."

Judicial Watch, a self-described "conservative, non-partisan educational foundation" that often points out federal spending that it believes is suspect, obtained the documents through the Freedom of Information Act.

Jim Miklaszewski is the chief Pentagon correspondent for NBC News; Courtney Kube is Pentagon producer.

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The Pentagon has released a 10-year-old video showing the interrogation of Osama bin Laden's driver, a Yemeni named Salem Hamdan.  

The video, recorded shortly after his capture in Afghanistanin 2001, shows Hamdan in a sparse room, kneeling on what appears to be a dirt floor, handcuffed with a hood over his head.   An American soldier armed with an automatic weapon removes the hood and an interrogator off camera begins to question Hamdan in Arabic.  The video include chyrons with an English translation of the exchanges.

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The interrogator asks Hamdan about weapons found in his car and support for al-Qaida.  Hamdan strenuously denies knowing anything about the weapons or al-Qaida operations.  The interrogation is measured, not overly aggressive, and there are no physical signs that Hamdan had been abused or tortured.  Hamdan appears at ease, almost relaxed.  He's given permission to readjust his sitting position to be more comfortable, and at one point starts interrogating the interrogator. 

 

Hamdan was convicted of providing material support to al-Qaida in 2008, while a charge of conspiring with al-Qaida was dropped.  He was sentenced to 5 ½ years and released shortly thereafter because he had already spent 6 years in custody at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detention camp in Cuba.

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Al-Qaida kidnapped Iranian envoy in bid to free bin Laden's kin, colleagues
Bin Laden fretted about al-Qaida affiliates' missteps, letters show
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Bin Laden in hiding: Hatching horrific plots despite crippling attacks on al-Qaida

Hamdan returned to Yemen and is currently appealing his conviction on the grounds the charge against him did not constitute a war crime. 

The Pentagon periodically releases transcripts and videos of evidence submitted to military commissions.  

This video was released unannounced on April 12.  Pentagon officials insist the timing of the video release had nothing to do with Saturday's rearraignment of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, at Guantanamo.

Jim Miklaszewski is NBC News' chief Pentagon correspondent.

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Al-Qaida and Iran had a “highly antagonistic” relationship in the years before Osama bin Laden’s death, with Iran jailing top al-Qaida officials and the terrorist organization responding by kidnapping an Iranian diplomat and threatening other violent measures to get them released, according to documents released Thursday by the U.S. government.

The feud between al-Qaida and Tehran was documented in several of the 17 letters retrieved from bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan and released by the Army’s Countering Terrorism Center at the West Point military academy in New York. While much reporting  on the documents focused on squabbling and worse between bin Laden and al-Qaida affiliates, the friction between Iran and al-Qaida  is noteworthy because it flies in the face of the view held by some U.S. conservatives that the two have worked together against U.S. interests.

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The discussion in the letters, written between September 2006 and April 2011, relates to al-Qaida’s decision to send some of its top leaders – and members of bin Laden’s family — to Iran following the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan late in 2001.

Operational personnel, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed and Ramzi bin al Shibh, both part of the planning for the September 11 attacks, were dispatched to Pakistani cities, where they were later grabbed in joint US-Pakistani operations.  But the terror group’s Management Council. which handled military, security and financial affairs, among other things, were sent to Iran, where it was hoped the Iranian government would “leave them alone,” the West Point analysis of the materials said.

 “Al-Qaida did not appear to have looked to Iran from the perspective that ‘the enemy of my (American) enemy is my friend,’” it said, “but the group might have hoped that ‘the enemy of my (American) enemy would leave me alone.’”

Instead, the Iranians immediately moved to detain them and in some cases deport them to their countries of origin, the report stated.  In fact, al-Qaida believed the decision to detain and deport was taken by the Islamic Republic under pressure from the United States.  At the time, the U.S. and Iran were engaged in a number of back channel discussions on al-Qaida, according to officials from both countries.

Many of the top al-Qaida leaders languished in Iranian custody for months and years. U.S. officials admit that prior to the Abbottabad raid, they had little understanding of the circumstances of their detention -- whether it was house arrest or imprisonment. Iranian officials had always insisted the al-Qaidaofficials and their families were “in jail,” as one high ranking Iranian official told NBC News several years ago, but many U.S. officials did not believe such assurances.

The materials released Thursday, however, indicate that the al-Qaida leaders were imprisoned and held in harsh conditions.  In a letter to bin Laden, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, essentially his chief of staff, recalled Sa’ad bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader’s son, telling him “the truths of what was happening, that they had repeatedly asked to leave Iran but they were beaten and suppressed.” The elder bin Laden, in one of his last letters to Atiyah, who is generally referred to by his first name, said that Sa’ad’s letter should be added to the group’s archives “in view of the important information it reveals about the truth of the Iranian regime.”

Negotiations for release of the prisoners ebbed and flowed, with some pleas sent directly from al-Qaida to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyad Ali Khamenei.  At one point, late in 2008, al-Qaida decided to take other measures. An Iranian diplomat, the commercial counselor at the Iranian consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, Hesmatollah Atharzadeh-Nyaki,  was kidnapped by al-Qaida operatives in November of that year. At the same time, al-Qaida apparently made other threats against Iranian interests.

Atiyah, who was reportedly killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2011, boasted to bin Laden that the diplomat’s kidnapping had a chilling effect on the Iranians, whom he referred to as “criminals” and portrayed as being afraid of al-Qaida.  

“We believe that our efforts, which included escalating a politicaland media campaign, the threats we made, the kidnapping of their friend the commercial counselor in the Iranian Consulate in Peshawar, and other reasons that scared them based on what they saw (we are capable of), to be among the reasons that led them to expedite (the release of these prisoners),” Atiyah wrote.

Still, things did not move as fast as bin Laden had hoped. He pressed Atiyah repeatedly in the letters to get his family released.  

"In the second half of 2010,” the West Point analysis said, “bin Ladin asked Atiyah to correspond with the Iranians (not clear if directly or indirectly) to tell them that ‘they promised that upon releasing their captive, they would release my family, which includes my daughter Fatima, who (should naturally stay in the company of) her husband,’” who was a top al-Qaida fighter.  

Ultimately, Iran did release some of the bin Laden family and some fighters,  some in the weeks before Bin Laden was killed. But they retained others, perhaps as hostages.  Atharzadeh-Nyaki, the Iranian diplomat, was finally released unharmed in March 2010.

A call to the Iranian Mission to the United Nations by NBC News on Thursday for comment was not returned.

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Throughout the negotiation process, Atiyah  expressed anger and frustration at the Iranians, writing at one point,  “The criminals did not send us any letter, nor did they send us a message through any of the brothers (they released)! Such behavior is of course not unusual for them; indeed, it is typical of their mindset and method. They do not wish to appear to be negotiating with us or responding to our pressures, as if to suggest that their actions are purely one-sided and based on their own initiative.”

The West Point analysis notes that the Iranians’ rationale in keeping the al-Qaida officials  prisoner for so long remains unclear, but suggests two possibilities:  to keep al-Qaida from carrying attacks in Iran or against Iranian assets overseas or as bargaining chips in negotiations with the United States.

In fact, U.S. and Iranian officials have told NBC News that third parties approached the U.S. in the years after 9-11 to offer a deal in which al-Qaida personnel  would be traded for leaders of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran who were in U.S. custody in Iraq.  The U.S., both sides report, declined.

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.

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ISLAMABAD , Pakistan – One of the 17 letters seized during the 2011 U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound and published Thursday reveals the lengths the al-Qaida chief went to keep himself and his family hidden and sheds light on how they apparently managed to remain undetected for so long while moving around Pakistan. 

The letter from bin Laden to “Sheik  Mahmud” was part of a cache of documents translated and released by the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. A senior U.S. official told NBC News that "Sheik Mahmud" was actually Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, essentially bin Laden's chief of staff until he was killed in August 2011 by a CIA drone strike.

The letter is not dated, but analysts believe it was written between July 4 and Oct. 20, 2010. During that time, bin Laden would have been living in the Abbottabad compound where he was later killed, along with two of his wives -- Siham, a Saudi national, and Amal, of Yemeni origin -- as well as several children and grandchildren. His second wife, Khairiah -- also from Saudi Arabia -- had been under house arrest in Iran, along with other members of the bin Laden family, and was being released. 

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In the letter, among several other topics, bin Laden issued detailed and complicated instructions as to how his wife -- referred to "Um Hamzah," or "mother of Hamzah" --  was to be moved to Pakistan and eventually reunited with him, if possible. Bin Laden showed a keen awareness of and great concern for the myriad ways in which she could be followed or tracked by intelligence elements and thus expose his location or those of other operatives.   

Once inside Pakistan, the letter said, she was to be taken "to the tunnel between Kuhat and Peshawar," where she should meet an al-Qaida contact and switch vehicles. "The meeting will be precise in timing and it will be inside the tunnel, and they will change cars inside the tunnel," he wrote, later explaining that moving through the tunnel was key to "avoiding surveillance." 

From there, he instructed the first car to "drive to an area that is unsuspected," while his wife in the second car would "go to Peshawar, go to one of the closed markets, and change cars again, then head to a safe place in Peshawar until we arrange for them to come, with Allah's will." Bin Laden even went so far as to consider the weather conditions, writing that the cars leaving the tunnel should "move after getting out of it in overcast weather, even if that would lead to them waiting for some time, knowing that the Peshawar area and its surroundings is often overcast." 

Read excerpts of the letter from bin Laden to 'Sheik Mahmud'

Bin Laden also warned of "the importance of getting rid of everything they received from Iran, like baggage or anything, even as small as a needle," concerned that tracking or listening devices could have been planted in clothes or other items in their possession. "Since the Iranians are not to be trusted, then it is possible to plant chips in some of the coming people's belongings," he wrote. 

It is unknown whether Khairiah's journey from Iran to Abbottabad actually followed this path, but her arrival at the compound, believed to have occurred in March or February 2011, reportedly caused many problems in the household. 

Brigadier Shaukat Qadir, a retired Pakistan Army officer who leveraged his military, intelligence, and tribal contacts to conduct an independent investigation into bin Laden's presence in Pakistan and the U.S. raid that killed him, was given access to the widows' interrogation transcripts, as well as the compound before it was destroyed. In his report, Qadir wrote that Khairiah was often at odds with other members of the household, particularly bin Laden's youngest wife, Amal, with whom he shared the third-floor living area, and bin Laden's son -- Khalid --  who also was highly suspicious of Khairiah's desire to join the family in Abbottabad. 

"Apparently," Qadir wrote, "he repeatedly asked her why she had come and, finally, on one occasion, (she) responded with a smile, "I have one final duty to perform for my husband.'" 

Qadir's theory is that Khairiahbetrayed her husband, leading authorities to him as she made her way from Iran. Bin Laden was killed in the U.S. raid within two or three months of her arrival.

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A Pakistani official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told NBC News she was "uncooperative" and "very difficult" during interrogations, acting aggressively towards the Pakistani authorities who questioned and held her for almost a year before she and the others were deported to Saudi Arabia last week. 

Previously, the only information available from family members about their movement came from an interrogation report of bin Laden’s youngest wife, Amal. Her testimony, which was summarized, described  how bin Laden and family members were moved quickly and frequently after 9/11 in an effort to keep them safe. She recalled being moved from place to place across the country, sometimes bouncing between multiple residences in a town or city. Her temporary homes ranged from the southern, mega-city of Karachi, to the crowded northwest capital of Peshawar, and the remote Swat Valley. 

Whether Qadir's theory proves true or not, the details and locations included in bin Laden's letter of instructions may provide clues as to how and where, exactly, he and his family moved around Pakistan for so many years, completely undetected.

Amna Nawaz is an NBC News correspondent in Pakistan.

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ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan -- A year after Osama bin Laden was found and killed in Pakistan, one key question has yet to be answered: how did the world's most wanted man manage to move and live, undetected, in this country for so long?

Journalists, analysts, and others have been working to fill in the narrative holes over the last 12 months. Leaked and strategically released nuggets of information have helped to paint a vague picture of what life was like inside the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden spent his final years, living with three of his wives, and several children and grandchildren. We've learned of the austere conditions inside the home, the restricted lifestyle led by all inside, and the discipline with which the head of al-Qaida communicated with a trusted few. But the crucial questions -- how he got to that compound in the first place and who helped him to do so -- remain unanswered.

Kamran Bokhari, vice-president for Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs at Stratfor, a global intelligence company, believes the idea that bin Laden moved around without a network of individuals organizing his transportation and logistics is simply not possible.

"If you're a six-foot-five Arab, and the most wanted man on the planet, you can't just walk into a place like Pakistan without support," Bokhari said. "So what's the nature of that support?"

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U.S. officials publicly state they have no evidence that any Pakistani institutional leaders had any knowledge of bin Laden's presence here, nor played any role in helping to move him. Privately, however, some admit that the deep mistrust between the two nations has led to strong, lingering suspicions within many in the U.S. that Pakistan's premier intelligence agency -- Inter-Services Intelligence, or the ISI -- must have known, at some level.

"There are deep suspicions on both sides," says retired General Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former national security advisor and ambassador to the United States. "I think the biggest concern in the U.S., if I put it in a phrase, is that Pakistan is hunting with the hounds and running with the hares. That is the perception."

Panetta recalls nail-biting moments of bin Laden raid

That perception has not been helped by what seem to be Pakistan's action priorities over the last year. The prevailing public dialogue among military and government officials in the immediate raid aftermath focused on how the U.S. had managed to breach Pakistan's borders, not how bin Laden had. The Pakistani doctor who ran a fake vaccination program in Abbottabad for the CIA in an effort to secure DNA samples from inside the bin Laden compound was swiftly tracked down, arrested, and remains in detention, possibly to stand trial for treason. Authorities quietly began work after dark to demolish the compound in February, keeping press behind a security cordon half a mile away, and after a year in custody, the widows and their families were shuttled out of their house in the dead of night and deported to Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan did immediately launch a formal commission with wide-reaching powers soon after the raid, pledging to investigate both the U.S. border breach and bin Laden's presence here. The Abbottabad Commission, as it's come to be known here, has enjoyed unparalleled access to anyone and everyone associated directly or peripherally with either issue, interviewing over 100 witnesses over the last year, including bin Laden's widows, the detained doctor who worked for the CIA, and high-level Pakistani officials.  But there is no working deadline and expectations vary as to how blunt and definitive an account commission members will be able to put forth.

"Given how previous commissions in Pakistan have behaved, I'm not really hopeful that much will come out of this," Bokhari said. "This is not like the 9/11 Commission or anything similar elsewhere in other countries where there's a process and transparency and rule of law."

'Embarrassment'
Durrani, who's been in touch with members of the commission, says the length of time it's taken for them to compile findings speaks to their determination to fulfill their mandate to the best of their ability.

"If the report comes out tomorrow and it's a whitewash, then people will ask -- what have you done?" Durrani said. "They [the commission members] are keen to get to the bottom of this, to find out what happened, why it happened, who's at fault, and what needs to be done so we don't have such embarrassment and such issues in the future."

Driving the investigators' query is a widely-held belief here in Pakistan that bin Laden was never here at all -- that the entire raid was an effort by the U.S. to defame and destabilize Pakistan's security establishment. Residents of Abbottabad with whom NBC News spoke reiterated that skepticism, saying they don't believe the U.S. claim that bin Laden was living in their midst, particularly in the absence of any evidence of his death.

Low expectations
Commission members have been reluctant to speak with the media until their findings are complete, but the head of the commission, retired Supreme Court Judge Javed Iqbal, confirmed to NBC News that one of the key issues his team is investigating is whether bin Laden was ever really here at all.

PhotoBlog: Abbottabad -- One year after Osama bin Laden raid

Despite low expectations for the pending report, Bokhari admits the commission is tasked with an enormously difficult job, one that will have repercussions for generations to come in the form of Pakistan's official narrative of this historic event.

"This is the biggest event in recent history since the fall of the Soviet Union -- 9/11 and its impact, the killing of Osama bin Laden -- so I'm not surprised it's taken them this long to come up with a report," Bokhari said. "It may take decades before anybody can actually come up with a comprehensive view of what was really happening."

 

The few specifics that have emerged from Pakistan in the last year in effect lead to more questions officials here must attempt to answer, through the commission or otherwise.

The U.S. moved quickly on the message-control front after the Abbottabad raid, releasing selective video clips and pieces of information from the "treasure trove" of evidence seized from bin Laden's compound. An NBC News team was given an exclusive briefing by a senior U.S. counterterrorism official on currently classified intelligence from the raid, including details of the role bin Laden played in al-Qaida from his hideout in Pakistan, who he was in touch with, and more on the life he lived within that compound. Those details will air on Discovery Channel on Tuesday as part of a one-hour special on the anniversary of the U.S. raid.

But the details from within Pakistan have been few and far between. A rare piece of evidence -- a confidential interrogation report of bin Laden's youngest wife, Amal, obtained by NBC News -- did reveal some surprising details about the family's life on the run after the attacks of September 11.

According to the report, Amal told investigators that the family scattered after 9/11, bouncing from house to house and place to place in Pakistan. In her complicated timeline, she moved across multiple residences in the southern mega-city of Karachi, then moved on to Peshawar to link up with her husband. From there, the family moved to Swat, then to Haripur, and finally settled in the Abbottabad home for about six years until the U.S. raid that killed her husband.

"These people are fanatics. They're ideological but keep in mind that they are also very professional at what they do," Bokhari explained. "They're in a business where if you make a small error in judgment it can easily translate to death for many people. There are people waiting for you to make a mistake. You have to be highly disciplined."

Co-conspirators?
But the pace of movement believed to have been followed by bin Laden and his family -- traversing entire provinces in Pakistan, and including rural, tribal, settled, and urban areas while remaining completely undetected -- would be difficult without some sort of network of support. Current and former Pakistani officials and analysts have offered up the possibility of "rogue or retired" elements from within Pakistan's military or intelligence establishment as possible facilitators or co-conspirators helping to hide bin Laden.

The nature of Pakistan's retired uniformed corps, many of whom stay involved with the work of the agencies long after they leave as the new leadership continues to make use of their experience and contacts, albeit in unofficial capacities and with limited authority. As the largest employer in Pakistan, it follows that the Pakistan army also has the largest pool of retirees, some of whom spent significant time working closely with and gaining the trust of jihadi groups in the 1980s and 1990s.

"If it's a retired network of people, what I call the 'Pakistani Blackwater,' that's not that bad. It's bad, but not that bad," Bokhari said. "But if it's someone who's serving, or more than one person, then [Pakistan's leaders] have a leak in [their] system and that's terrifying. Anyone who's a very nationalistic, Pakistani leader who doesn't want al-Qaida or the CIA to be able to get into their house will want to get to the bottom of that."

Bin Laden's widow's condition worsens, brother says

As potentially worrying or damaging as some of the information in the commission's report may be for Pakistan's institutions, it is also widely believed that the organizations cannot survive without taking a hard look at their own potential faults, and admitting mistakes where they did occur. The military and intelligence establishments were already raked over the coals by the government and media after last year's raid in Abbottabad, and are now under the highest level of scrutiny in the country's history.

A failure, at this point, to produce a credible, official version of events will only damage Pakistan, according to Durrani.

"Pakistan wants to move forwards not backwards. They have to get to the bottom of this, in their own interest," he says. "If they don't, it will be another major issue buried in the sands of history. And people will forever be looking for answers."

NBC's Fakhar Rehman contributed to this report from Abbottabad.