Mystery Solved?
"Over a period of time, an effective intelligence agency should have been able to contact, infiltrate or co-opt (bin Laden's support network), and to develop a whole case load of information. Apparently, this was not the case."
Report, Abbottabad Commission
Waziristan HavenThe report has not been formally released for public appraisal, but as often enough occurs, a copy of it was made available to Al-Jazeera which has released details from it to the great interest of the reading public. The authors of the report conducted extensive interviews of the family of Osama bin Laden and others to enable them to achieve a collective opinion and knowledge of how and why the most sought-after figure in modern-day history was able to live comfortably in a country that steadfastly denied claims by other countries that Pakistan was harbouring the al-Qaeda leader.
The military establishment comes in for huge criticism for its failure to be apprised of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad; for that matter anywhere within Pakistan. For over the years since the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Afghan Taliban which had given haven to bin Laden and refused to surrender him to the United States after the horrendous terrorist attacks of 9-11, he was sheltered in various parts of the country, starting in the Waziristan tribal areas where he was held in great esteem. Pakistan, in fact, sheltered, trained and armed the Afghan Taliban.
And by extension offered their hospitality to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. But not officially, since to do so would be to effectively quash the windfall of billions the military received annually courtesy of the United States treasury. That his was a fact was well enough known by the United States and its allies. That it was continually denied by official Pakistan was also well enough known by the U.S. and its NATO allies.
To ostensibly give credence to the claims that the military, or parts thereof were not infiltrated by Islamists, along with the country's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency which also had no knowledge of his whereabouts in the country is to suspend credibility altogether, wilfully. But this is the accepted pretence, and the conclusions reached by the report appear to respect that fiction, while condemning both the military and the ISI for 'not knowing'.
Once in Pakistan for shelter from the hopeful resources of the U.S. military intent on finding, isolating and capturing him, Osama bin Laden lived in the Swat Valley in 2002. He then moved on to a quiet town a mere hour and a half drive from the capital of the country. His youngest wife gave birth to two of their children while they lived there, at a local clinic where she pretended to be deaf and dumb, incapable of responding to possible questioning.
In 2005 the family moved to the Abbottabad compound. And where bin Laden arranged to build on a third story. Had government agencies been aware, and doing their job, claims the report, discrepancies in failing to procure a local building order for the third-floor addition, and special electrical connections installed in the large sprawling home should have alerted them to unusual circumstances that might have warranted scrutiny. As if.
Locals spoke of the compound as 'Waziristan House'. A local, it should be recalled, a Pakistani surgeon whose own house was next to the bin Laden compound, had cooperated with the CIA in its bid to accurately identify the mysterious owner of the house whom no one local seemed to know the identity of. That doctor, Shakil Afridi, was arrested and charged with treason for aiding the U.S. track down Osama bin Laden, then sentenced to 33 years in prison as a traitor to the country.
That much was the government of Pakistan interested in cooperating with their partner in the battle against terrorism. The bin Laden family lived for six years in the Abbottabad house; the patriarch and three of his wives and their children. The wives were kept separately. And in downstairs apartments lived the families of retainers who other than their family heads, the men of the family, had no knowledge of the identity of the strange man who lived above them.
That house in Abbottabad, a town a scant 50 kilometres from Islamabad, was packed with military families living in the upscale area. The bin Laden compound itself was in view of Pakistan's elite officer training academy. Yet nothing gave any of them the merest hint of the presence of the world's most-sought-after villain. After Navy SEALs had made their swiftly spectacular airdrop from helicopters without knowledge of Islamabad and dispatched Osama bin Laden to a watery grave, his wives were taken into safe-keeping custody.
Their interrogation played a large part in the conclusions and details of the completed report. For anyone to believe that the report is anything but a sham is to believe that a visit to the moon would enable those visitors to stock up on cheese for a pantry's lifetime.
Labels: Conflict, Islamism, Pakistan, Terrorism, United States
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, July 10, 2013
<< Home