In the hunt for bin Laden, “A new lead emerged when post-9/11 detainees gave investigators a glimpse into the al Qaeda chief’s inner circle, the [senior Obama Administration] official said. During questioning, detainees repeatedly mentioned the nickname of a man they said was one of the few couriers bin Laden trusted. …Investigators knew the courier–a protege of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [KSM]–was ‘important,’ because a number of detainees held out on providing information about him, the senior U.S. official said. When interrogators pushed Mohammed on the courier’s identity, he ‘lied to protect his protege,’ the official said. ‘We knew he was lying, because we already knew (the courier) was a KSM protege,’ the official said. In fact, other detainees indicated that the courier could have been working for bin Laden, the official added. While Mohammed held back on information, that in itself made intelligence personnel more interested in the courier because they knew Mohammed was lying, the official said. U.S. intelligence uncovered the courier’s identity four years ago ‘from a different part of the world,’ the senior U.S. official said. He declined to say where.”
– Gloria Borger, Barbara Starr, Adam Levine, Nick Paton Walsh, Pam Benson, and Suzanne Kelly, “Trail Leading to bin Laden began with His Trusted Courier,” CNN, May 2, 2011