Osama, top aides were discussing deal with Pak

Washington: Osama bin Laden and his top aides had discussed making a deal with Pakistan in which al Qaeda would refrain from attacking the country in exchange for protection inside the country, US officials have said.

Documents seized from the slain al Qaeda chief's Abbottabad hideout include messages between bin Laden and his top operations chief over the past year which provide the first suggestion that bin Laden considered Pakistan's government amenable to a bargain The New York Times reported quoting unnamed US officials.

The paper said that such a bargain was to ensure the safety of top al Qaeda leaders. The officials emphasised that they had found no evidence that such a proposal, which one American official said was in the "discussion phase," was ever raised with Pakistani military or intelligence operatives.

But the fact that bin Laden even considered a truce with Pakistan suggests that he thought the idea might have had some support inside the country's national security establishment.

At the same time, Pakistan could argue that the discussions provided evidence that there was no deal already in place allowing bin Laden to hide in the sprawling compound in Abbottabad, a middle-class town 75 miles (about 120 kms) by road from the Pakistani capital, the daily said.

The CIA is pouring over a huge electronic database that Navy Seal commandos seized during the raid that killed bin Laden this month.

The new details emerged even as US Secretary of State said there was no evidence to suggest that anyone in Pakistan government's highest level knew about the presence of bin Laden living just miles from the federal capital.

The information also came at the time when American officials said that Pakistan had granted permission for the CIA to send a forensics team to search bin Laden's compound.

Many American officials are skeptical that bin Laden could have hidden for so long inside Pakistan without at least the tacit approval of some Pakistani officials.

Top American officials said they had yet to see any evidence of official approval from the electronic files. But new information is being discovered about al Qaeda's structure, particularly about a tier of operatives, bin Laden corresponded with, who were in charge of the network's daily operations.

In particular, the documents highlight the central role played by Atiya Abdul Rahman, the operations chief with whom American officials said bin Laden discussed a possible truce with Pakistan.

Rahman is a Libyan operative who came into the job after a drone strike in 2010 killed his boss, Sheik Saeed al-Masri.