 Accounts of how Bin Laden was located by U.S. intelligence differ. The White House and CIA director John Brennan stated that the process began with a fragment of information unearthed in 2002, resulting in years of investigation. This account states that by September 2010, these leads followed a courier to the Abbottabad urban compound, where the U.S. began intensive multiplatform surveillance. According to journalist Seymour Hersh and NBC News, however, the U.S. was tipped off about Bin Laden's location when a Pakistani intelligence officer offered details of where the Pakistani Intelligence Service held him in detention in exchange for a bounty.
