“It seems deeply improbable that Bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state,” says Mosharraf Zaidi, a leading Pakistani columnist, noting Abbottabad’s strategic importance.

Abbottabad residents tell the Monitor that around 1 a.m. Monday morning, US Special Forces battled Bin Laden’s bodyguards some 800 yards from the Pakistani Military Academy.

“I think it is a failure of our intelligence – the fact that he can hang around in Abbottabad for so long and we didn’t know,” says Zafar Hillay, a former diplomat.