CIA watched bin Laden from nearby safe house inside Pakistan

ABBOTTABAD/NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – Extensive  surveillance of Osama bin Laden’s hideout from a nearby CIA safe  house in Abbottabad led to his killing in a Navy SEAL operation,  U.S. officials said, a revelation likely to further embarrass  Pakistan’s spy agency and strain ties.
The U.S. officials, quoted by the Washington Post, said the  safe house was the base for intelligence gathering that began  after bin Laden’s compound was discovered last August, and which  was so exhaustive the CIA asked Congress to reallocate tens of  millions of dollars to fund it.
“The CIA’s job was to find and fix,” the Post quoted one  U.S. official as saying, using special forces terminology for  locating a target. “The intelligence work was as complete as it  was going to be, and it was the military’s turn to finish the  target.”
U.S. officials told the New York Times that intelligence  gathered from computer files and documents seized at his  compound showed bin Laden had for years orchestrated al Qaeda  attacks from the Pakistani town, and may have been planning a  strike on the U.S. rail sector this year, the 10th anniversary  of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
One U.S. official said there was no indication from the  intelligence that further plans were drawn up for the railway  plot or that steps were taken to carry it out. The U.S.  Department of Homeland Security said it had no information of an  imminent threat.
The fact bin Laden was found in a garrison town — his  compound was not far from a major military academy — has  embarrassed Pakistan and the covert raid by U.S. commandos has  angered its military.
On Thursday, the Pakistan army threatened to halt  counter-terrorism cooperation with the United States if it  conducted another, similar unilateral strike.
A major Islamist party in Pakistan, Jamaat-e-Islami, called  for mass protests on Friday against what it called a violation  of sovereignty by the U.S. raid. It also urged the government to  end support for U.S. battles against militants.
A senior Pakistani security official also charged that U.S.  troops had killed the unarmed al Qaeda leader in “cold blood”.
The criticism from Pakistan is likely to fray a relationship  that Washington deems vital to defeating al Qaeda and winning  its war in neighboring Afghanistan. [ID:nL3E7G51PT]
A U.S. acknowledgment that bin Laden was unarmed when shot  in the head — as well as the sea burial of his body, a rare  practice in Islam — have also drawn criticism in the Arab world  and Europe, where some have warned of a backlash.
Few Americans appear to have any qualms about how bin Laden  was killed, and on Thursday, scores of people cheered President  Barack Obama during a visit to New York’s Ground Zero, site of  the twin towers al Qaeda levelled on Sept. 11, 2001, to comfort  a city still scarred by attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Obama said the killing of bin Laden “sent a message around  the world, but also sent a message here back home, that when we  say we will never forget, we mean what we say.”