The house where children never came out to play

THE children in the white mansion with closed circuit cameras in Abbottabad never came out to play.

Only now, after a stunning US assault that killed Osama bin Laden in the small, tranquil Pakistani city and put it under an international spotlight, is it all starting to make sense.

The al-Qaida leader, widely believed to be hiding in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan, was actually one of the mysterious neighbours next door — acutely aware that one false move could tip off US intelligence agents hunting him.