'Osama is alive!' mock Pakistanis outside bin Laden home

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Dozens of Pakistani youths on Tuesday demonstrated outside the upmarket compound where Osama bin Laden was killed, mocking the United States and shouting, 'Osama is alive!'

Unconvinced by news that the Al-Qaeda kingpin had been living in their leafy city of Abbottabad, one protester dressed up as the world's 'most-wanted' man, who was killed in a helicopter raid by US commandos.

"Osama is alive, here comes Osama!" he exclaimed jokingly, donning a white turban and hiding his face with a cloth.

Some children as young as four or five joined the spontaneous rally, which was full of laughter and held alongside a heavy police contingent guarding the scene of the now world-famous operation to kill the terror mastermind.

Another in the group, wearing a black turban similar to that sported by the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Omar, suggested that the raid had been a fake.

"Long live Osama, here come Mullar Omar and Osama!" he proclaimed.

Conspiracy theories, propped up by distrust of the United States, have spread quickly among residents in the quiet, relatively well-to-do garrison town after the news emerged of bin Laden's death on their doorstep.

"We are really surprised about how this is possible," said Mohammad Anwar, another teenager at the gathering.