Bin Laden's last years outlined

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RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, March 8 (UPI) -- Osama bin Laden moved among safe houses in northwest Pakistan disguised as a Pashtun elder before settling in Abbottabad in 2005, a retired army officer said.

Former Pakistani Army brigadier Shaukat Qadir said he spent months researching bin Laden's life in Abbottabad, where the al-Qaida leader died in a U.S. Navy SEAL commando raid on May 2, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Qadir said his research started as a personal attempt to fact-check conflicting accounts of bin Laden's last year's in Pakistan.

"As a former soldier, I was struck by how badly the house was defended," he said. "No proper security measures, nothing high-tech–in fact, nothing like you would expect."

Qadir said bin Laden's fifth and youngest wife told interrogators that the al-Qaida leader underwent a kidney transplant in 2002 that allowed him to survive.

That statement, if true, raises questions about who was helping him.

She also told of tension between his wives in the cramped Abbottabad house and accused an older woman who occupied a separate floor in the house of betraying bin Laden to American intelligence.