A drawing, released by the United State Department of Defense May 2, 2011, shows the compound that Osama bin Laden was killed in on Monday in Abbottabad, Pakistan. [Photo/Agencies]

The two names apparently refer to the same man and both names may be fake. But one thing is clear - bin Laden relied on a small, trusted inner circle as lifelines to the outside who provided for his daily needs such as food and medicine and kept his location secret. And it appears they did not betray him.

Arshad is also suspected as the courier who unwittingly led the Americans to bin Laden after years of painstaking tracking.

US officials have identified the courier as Sheikh Abu Ahmed, a Pakistani man born in Kuwait who went by the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. They obtained his name from detainees held in secret CIA prison sites in Eastern Europe and vetted it with top al-Qaida operatives like September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The man who periodically ventured outside bin Laden's compound with the suspected courier is believed to be his brother. American officials said the courier and his brother were killed in the American commando raid on the compound early Monday.

The courier was so important to al-Qaida that he was tapped by Mohammed to shepherd the man who was to have been the 20th hijacker through computer training needed for the September 11 attacks, according to newly released documents from Guantanamo Bay interrogations.

The courier trained Maad al-Qahtani at an internet cafe in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi in July 2001 so that he could communicate by email with Mohammed Atta, the September 11 financier and one of the 19 hijackers, who was already in the United States.

But al-Qahtani proved to be a poor student and was ultimately denied entry to the US when he raised suspicion among immigration officials.

The Guantanamo documents also revealed that the courier might have been one of the men who accompanied bin Laden to Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan in December 2001 just weeks before the Taliban's final surrender.

Al-Kuwaiti inadvertently led intelligence officials to bin Laden when he used a telephone last year to talk with someone the US had wiretapped. The CIA then tracked al-Kuwaiti back to the walled compound in Abbottabad, which was located near a Pakistani army academy.

Bin Laden was living in the house for up to six years before US Navy Seals raided the compound and shot the al-Qaida leader.

One of bin Laden's daughters, who says she saw US forces shooting her father, is in Pakistani custody, said a Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with the agency's policy.

A total of 10-12 people, including six or seven children, and a woman have been seized from the compound and are all in Pakistani custody, he said. The woman, whose nationality the official would not disclose, is wounded and undergoing treatment at a hospital, he said.