US interrogates Osama's wives

WASHINGTON: US intelligence services have reportedly interrogated three of Osama bin Laden's widows who were picked up in a US raid that saw the al-Qaeda leader killed.

The women were interviewed as a group, despite US wishes to interview them separately, and were openly "hostile'' to US officials interviewing them, CNN reported, quoting a Pakistani government official and two US officials.

The eldest of the wives spoke for all them in the interview, which was also attended by members of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

The youngest of the three wives, 29-year-old Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah of Yemen, was wounded during the US raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2.

The other two wives are from Saudi Arabia, according to a well-placed US official.

Members of both governments told CNN that despite the increase in tensions between the US and Pakistan in the wake of the raid that killed bin Laden, intelligence sharing has continued.

The White House had called on Islamabad to help counter growing mistrust by granting US investigators access to the three, who have been in Pakistani custody.

It is thought the women could have vital information on the al-Qaeda network and bin Laden's involvement - from his hide-out in Pakistan - in their operations.

The United States has demanded an investigation into how the al-Qaeda chief could have lived for years in Abbottabad, a garrison city near a top Pakistani military academy and only 56 kilometres from Islamabad.

Pakistan officials have slammed the US raid but adamantly denied sheltering the man believed to have masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks, which killed some 3000 people in the United States. (Online)