BBC News with Fiona MacDonald
Senior United States intelligence officials have for the first time said that Osama Bin Laden was in active control of al-Qaeda
right up to
his death in the American raid on his compound in Pakistan. The officials said the raid
yield
ed the biggest
collection
of intelligence ever
obtain
ed from a single terrorism suspect. Videos seized during the raid which the Americans have just released show him delivering a video message to the American people and watching himself on television. Our security correspondent Frank Gardner reports.
The really interesting thing, I think, coming out of all of this is that US intelligence appears to be doing a 180-degree about-turn. Having said for years that "Well, he's
on the run
, he's not...he's too busy to do any command and controlling," they are now saying that his compound in Abbottabad was the command and control centre, a command and control centre for al-Qaeda, and that he was in operational command of the organisation, which is quite different to what we've been told till now.
Afghanistan's second city Kandahar has been
paralyse
d by intense fighting
spark
ed by multiple attacks from suspected Taliban militants on government buildings. At least six of the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers. Afterwards, militants exchanged fire with security forces with both sides using heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. From Kabul, here's Paul Wood.