London, May 22: The three widows of Osama bin Laden are turning on each other in custody, with two older Saudi women blaming a much younger Yemeni wife for leading American intelligence to their hideout.

“It’s vicious,” said a Pakistani officer briefed on the interrogation of the widows. “The older wives think the younger one tipped off the Americans or was tracked when she came to join him.”

The al Qaida leader was living with three wives when he was killed in Abbottabad three weeks ago. Until US investigators discovered his hiding place, it was not known whether Osama and his family were alive. Some reports suggested that they had been killed in the US bombing of Afghanistan.

Although the compound where Osama hid for five years was large, the three wives were all cooped up in the same house. The older two lived on the second floor and the youngest one on the top. Their husband alternated between them. Pakistani officers who have been debriefing the women portray life in the compound as an Islamic version of Desperate Housewives.

“It’s a well-known fact that when you have two older wives and then this young one comes along half their age, they don’t like it,” said one.

The wives even dispute who tried to protect their husband. The youngest was reported to have attempted to save him, sustaining a bullet wound to her calf. But the older wives say they were the ones who rushed to shield him.

Osama’s third and fourth wives, the older Saudi women, married him in the 1980s. At 62, Khaira Husain Sabir is eight years older than her husband. Known as Umm Hamza, or mother of Hamza, she has a degree in Arabic and before their marriage in 1985 worked as a teacher of deaf children.

Siham Abdulla bin Husain, 54, known as Umm Khalid — mother of Khalid, a son who was killed in the raid — has a doctorate in Islamic jurisprudence, and taught Arabic.

The two women converted a room in the Abbottabad compound into a classroom for Khaira’s grandchildren.

Osama’s first marriage was in 1974 to his Syrian cousin Najwa when he was 17 and she just 15. She is described by her sister-in-law Carmen Bin Laden as “meek, submissive, highly religious and constantly pregnant”. She had 11 children.