Behind bin Laden's Walls: Rabbits, Pepsi, Suspicion

The 18-foot-high walls were topped with barbed wire and bright security lights. Two Pakistani men came out every day to do the shopping, often buying bulk orders of Pepsi, Coke, Nestle, and other major brands. The residents burned their garbage in order to avoid having it collected. These and other details are emerging about Osama bin Laden's compound, as neighbors tell Bloomberg and the AP they were always a bit wary of the people living there. "People were skeptical in this neighborhood about this place and these guys. They used to gossip, say they were smugglers or drug dealers," says a nearby farmer.

“When we played cricket in the field near the house, if the ball flew over their wall and we went to the gate to ask for it, the guards would be angry,” says a local teen, adding that the guards would give them money to buy a new ball rather than allow them into the compound. Others describe similarly angry responses when they approached the door, but one woman says her grandkids played with the children who lived there, and that the adults in the house gave the children rabbits as gifts. Click for more about the compound and Abbottabad. (More Osama bin Laden stories.)