Pakistan demolishes Bin Laden hideout
On Monday, Pakistani authorities finished demolishing the compound where Osama bin Laden lived for at least five years until he was killed by U.S. special forces last May.
The work to demolish the remnants of Bin Laden’s hideout in the northwestern garrison town of Abbottabad started on Saturday, and concluded on Monday. According to a report by the AFP, only a few walls were left standing.
“The demolition has been completed, the three-story building was razed to the ground,” a security official told AFP.
“We have been ordered to be deployed here until further instructions. The outer wall will remain intact for the moment and we don’t know the plan for the future. First we will remove the debris,” the official added. “We found nothing in the building. Everything had already been taken away by the investigation experts.”
Pakistani security forces cordoned off the area surrounding Bin Laden’s hideout, prohibiting journalists and spectators from getting too close to the compound ever since the special forces raid on May 2.
Pakistani officials haven’t officially said why they decided to raze Bin Laden’s hideout, but one official told the AFP that the government wanted to demolish the hideout so as to avoid it becoming a shrine for militants.
