Washington: The CIA conducted secret flights of stealth drones over the Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad for months before the May 02 Navy SEALs raid that led to killing of al-Qaeda chief, an American newspaper quoted sources as saying.
The sources said that the sophisticated stealth drones allowed the CIA to go undetected beyond the boundaries that Pakistan has imposed on other US drones that carried out attacks in its tribal region near Afghan border.
The agency turned to the new stealth aircraft “because they needed to see more about what was going on” than other surveillance platforms allowed, said a former U.S. official familiar with the details of the operation. “It’s not like you can just park a Predator overhead — the Pakistanis would know,” added the former official, who, , spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the program.
The monitoring effort also involved satellites, eavesdropping equipment and CIA operatives based at a safe house in Abbottabad, the city where bin Laden was found.
The new drones represent a major advance in the capabilities of remotely piloted planes, which have been the signature American weapon against terrorist groups since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The CIA went to Congress late last year, seeking permission to transfer tens of millions of dollars within agency budgets to fund intelligence-gathering efforts focused on the Osama’s complex.
The stealth drones were used on the night of the raid, providing imagery that President Obama and members of his national security team appear in photographs to have been watching as U.S.
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