Osama Bin Laden Lived In Pakistan for Nine Years: Report

Islamabad, July 10, IRNA – A Pakistani report says that no institution or individual was aware of former al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan who lived in the country for nine years. The report was provided by the US Navy SEALS through strategic ground support for the operation to capture world’s most wanted man. The report said it has acquired the report of a Pakistani commission formed to investigate the US SEALS raids on the Osama compound in Abbotabad and the al-Qaeda chief presence in the country. The commission did not hold any individual or institution responsible for the US unilateral military raid. The Abbottabad Commission Report reveals the sequence of events that helped United States hunt down world’s most wanted man. It quoted widows as saying that Osama lived for six years in the compound until he was killed on May 2, 2011. The report says the statements of President Asif Ali Zardari, former prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, and Chief of the Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani remain reserved to date as they did not appear before the commission. The commission reported that tracing Osama in Pakistan and subsequently sharing this intelligence with the government was solely Inter Services Intelligenceˈs (ISI) responsibility. Osama was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, by Navy SEALs of the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group. The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a Central Intelligence Agency-led operation. The raid on bin Ladenˈs compound in Abbottabad was launched from Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda confirmed the death on May 6 with posts made on militant websites, vowing to avenge the killing. The 336-page report said that Osama lived in Swat valley, Bajaur and South Waziristan tribal region and Haripur city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and later he moved to Abbotabad. The report says that the inability to detect the low flying helicopters over Abbottabad was a major failure. The air force officials told the commission that the radar system along the border with Afghanistan were at the state of peacetime period. The Abbottabad Commission, headed by a former Supreme Court judge, Javed Iqbal, was tasked to determine whether the failures of the Pakistani government and military were due to incompetence, or complicity. The commission was delegated investigative powers to interview anyone they consider useful for investigation. The panel interviewed over 201 witnesses – including members of Bin Laden’s own family, the chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, Air Force officers and other senior provincial, federal and military officials. The former intelligence chief, Ahmad Shujaa Pasha had told the commission that the US had demanded release of Pakistani doctor, Shakil Afridi, who had helped the CIA reach Osama bin Laden through a fake vaccination campaign./end