CIA to examine bin Laden compound

A CIA forensics team will examine the compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, after receiving permission from Pakistan, the Washington Post reports.

The agency will use sophisticated technology, including infrared cameras, to look for any al Qaeda materials that may be hidden between walls or buried at the terror leader's lair. U.S. commandos spent only 40 minutes in the compound when carrying out the raid that killed bin Laden earlier this month. Still, they came away with what the government has described as the largest intelligence haul ever recovered on al Qaeda or any other terrorist network.

But the CIA wants to return for "another, more thorough, look," a U.S. official told the Post.

Bin Laden lived at the Abbottabad compound for the last five to seven years of his life, and appears to have rarely left the grounds.

The arrangement was negotiated by CIA Deputy Director Michael J. Morell, who met last week with the chief of Pakistan's intelligence service in Islamabad. It's just one sign of a more cooperative relations between the two intelligence agencies, which have often been at odds--especially since the U.S. operation to kill bin Laden, which U.S. officials did not seek to coordinate with Pakistan.

In addition, Pakistan will let the CIA look at materials that Pakistani security forces recovered from the compound, according to U.S. officials. The CIA also wants Pakistan's help in making sense of some of the materials it seized in the raid--especially some references to people and places. And the CIA has been allowed to interrogate three of bin Laden's wives, who were taken into custody by Pakistan after the raid--though the U.S. officials have said none have been cooperative or offered useful information.

(In an image taken from a video broadcast, Dec. 24, 1998, Osama bin Laden spoke during an interview at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.: ABC News/AP)