t took less than an hour for the U.S. Special Forces to complete their mission and kill Osama bin Laden.

It will take far longer to determine the fate of his children.

The children — American soldiers left them at the compound with their hands bound behind their backs after taking away bin Laden’s body and dozens of computers and hard drives — are aged 4 to 12 and are being kept in a safe house near Islamabad in the military city Rawalpindi, a source told the Star.

Details on their specific ages and gender have not been released, although reports indicate bin Laden’s 12-year-old daughter Safia witnessed her father’s death.

It’s possible some of the children are bin Laden’s nephews and nieces.

While Pakistan’s foreign ministry has said it wants to repatriate the children to their country of origin, that may prove difficult. Long before his death, Saudi Arabia revoked the citizenship of the 54-year-old bin Laden in 1994.