A man walks in front of Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad. (AP)

Islamabad, May 26 (Agencies): A US official said Pakistan has agreed to give the CIA access to the compound where Osama bin Laden lived before his killing in a May 2 raid by Navy SEALs, according to a report in The Washington Post.

The compound is in the northwest Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad. It includes a 3-storey house where the al Qaida chief is believed to have lived for five years.

The US official said today that while it’s likely that Pakistani intelligence has already searched the compound, the CIA still hopes to find fingerprints or other clues. The official requested anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic negotiations.

US officials said the CIA team may arrive in Pakistan within days and head to Abbottabad, 120km from Islamabad, with an objective to scrub the site for items that were not recovered by American commandos.

Till now, the CIA had scrutinised the compound only from a distance using satellites and stealth drones.

They said since the US assault team that killed Osama was at the site only for 40 minutes, the CIA team will make use of the visit “to do another, more thorough, look.”

“CIA deputy director Michael J Morell negotiated access to the Abbottabad site during a trip to Islamabad last week when he met the head of the ISI, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha,” the Post quoted US officials as saying.

Pakistan’s agreement is seen as an encouraging sign that the two spy services will continue cooperating despite anger in Islamabad over the American operation to kill Osama and a series of recent ruptures between the CIA and its Pakistani counterpart, the Post said.

It quoted the officials as saying that Islamabad has also agreed to allow the CIA to examine the materials recovered by Pakistani security forces from the compound.

The CIA has asked the ISI for assistance in analysing some of the records that were seized in the raid and brought to a CIA document exploitation facility in northern Virginia.

“In particular, US officials said that the CIA is seeking help in deciphering references to names of individuals and places,” the Post said.

US intelligence officials have described the stash of material recovered from the Osama compound as the largest intelligence haul ever recovered.

“The materials include dozens of computer storage devices as well as thousands of pages of paper. Even so, US officials said they want to be sure that other material has not been overlooked.

“The CIA plans to involve the use of infra-red cameras and other devices capable of identifying materials embedded behind walls, inside safes or underground,” the report said.

The Post said Pakistan agreed in part because it does not have such equipment and breaking through portions of the structure to conduct a search might risk destroying any materials hidden inside. The CIA also has equipment that could be used to recover information that has been burned. US officials said they have seen no evidence that there were tunnels underneath the compound.