Osama bin Laden: Family tells of last moments of the world's most wanted man

The sound of footsteps and gunfire was coming closer, up the stairs towards the third floor where Osama bin Laden, his youngest wife Amal and one of his daughters must have known their life on the run was reaching its end.

On the landing outside their refuge, Amal saw the dark form of an American Navy Seal steady his weapon, a red laser ray trained on her husband's chest. She flung herself at the commando, in a desperate attempt to snatch the rifle away.

A bullet pierced her knee and more shots followed. As she lay injured on the bed, Amal heard the American accents of soldiers asking two of bin Laden's daughters the name of the man they just killed.

This is not another gung-ho account of the raid on bin Laden's hideaway told by the Navy Seals who mounted the assault, nor is it the gripping climax of Zero Dark Thirty, Hollywood's version of the story.

For the first time the voices of Osama's wives and children can be heard amid pages and pages of eyewitness accounts. This is the story of the raid from inside the high-walled compound and told to Pakistani investigators.

The report of the Abbottabad Commission, obtained by Al Jazeera, heaps scorn on Pakistan's political and military establishment for failing to realise that the world's most wanted man was living in a town barely 30 miles from the capital, and almost within sight of the country's officer training academy. It accuses the authorities of a catalogue of failures, missing a string of discrepancies that should have led the hunt to the secretive villa in Abbottabad.

"Over a period of time, an effective intelligence agency should have been able to contact, infiltrate or co-opt [OBL's support network], and to develop a whole case load of information. Apparently, this was not the case," it concluded.

It also details the way the world's most wanted man was able to move through the country's north-west almost at will, building himself a house, fathering children and hiding in plain sight.

Bin Laden had settled in Abbottabad, living for more than six years in the custom-built house with his three wives. They described how they were woken on the night of the raid by what they thought was a storm but turned out to be American Black Hawk helicopters.

Footsteps on the roof followed quickly and within minutes bin Laden had been shot. Summaya, one of bin Laden's daughters, said she knew immediately he was dead. She described a bullet wound to his forehead and the way "blood flowed backwards over his head". After 36 minutes it was all over.

The wives were allowed to collect bin Laden's will and a few trinkets before disappearing into the custody of the Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. The comprehensive report, with evidence from more than 200 witnesses, also gives insight into the lengths bin Laden went to in order to avoid detection - and the opportunities missed to catch him.

After arriving in Pakistan, he lived in the Swat Valley for several months at the end of 2002. During this period he came closest to detection when his car was stopped for speeding. Next, they moved to the quiet town of Haripur, not much more than an hour and half's drive from Islamabad.

There Amal gave birth to two children at a local clinic. To keep her from awkward questions, Abrar al-Kuwaiti, one of bin Laden's two couriers, and his wife told the doctors she was deaf and dumb.

They moved to Abbottabad in 2005 to a new high-walled home. According to the report, discrepancies in the purchase of land, an unapproved third storey and several odd features - such as four electricity connections to keep bills down - should all have triggered alarm bells among government agencies.

To locals, used to not asking questions for fear of upsetting gangsters or warlords, the villa was known as Waziristan House". Inside the families were segregated. While the wives and children of the two couriers were able to leave the compound, bin Laden's relatives stayed inside. He even took to wearing a cowboy hat as he exercised in the yard, for fear of being spotted from above.

He also took pains to hide his true identity from the families of the two couriers but overlooked the presence of a television set inside the compound.

One day a few months before the raid, Rahma, a daughter of one of the couriers, spotted a picture of bin Laden on Al Jazeera and recognized him as the man she called "Miskeen Baba" - or poor uncle - from the main house. The television was quickly banned and all interaction between the two families ended.