‘Pakistani-Americans, Pashtuns recruited to track Osama’

WASHINGTON: A former head of the Bin Laden team at the CIA Michael Scheuer said that since 2001 the CIA has made a concerted effort to recruit Pakistani-Americans, Pashtuns and Americans whose physical features help them resemble locals from Middle Eastern and South Asian countries to track al Qaeda chief.

Some of the Pashtuns were directly employed by the CIA, Schueur said, while others are "cut-outs" - spies hired through a third party who are ignorant of the identity of their paymaster.

But it is unlikely non-Americans were involved in the Abbottabad operation, Scheuer said. "I doubt they were local nationals. This is something we clearly want to do ourselves," he said.

The CIA is now analysing computer disks seized in the Navy Seals raid on Bin Laden's house for evidence of planned attacks on the US. But few Pakistanis believe it was really his house.