Osama Bin Laden Killed in Pakistan-2

[Sam]

Pervez Musharraf was a commando, will be interesting to find out if he and this Kashmiri guy were trained in same academy.

[Aditya_V]

Boss, Imagine he manages a sucessful attack on the West with His name Kashmiri, former SSG. It will be very dificult even the best spin Mangers to convince Pakis are thier friends.

[Lalmohan]

yes, kashmiri and mush were polishing rockets together in artillery batallion as young mujahids (says so in BENIS)

[surinder]

BO deftly ducked questions on Pakistan. Even after an event of such magnitude, he refused to say that he does not trust the Pakis. This indicates a reluctance to publicly implicate the Pakis, hence it indicates the continuance of the same old policies.

The fact that OBL was found living close to Islamabad is not surprising in any sense of the word, what would have been surprising, to me at least, is if US decided to ditch Pakistan (in any sense of the word) as a result of this OBL fiasco.

US pre-eminence today does not exist in vacuum, on the contrary this pre-eminence is based on the global status quo that exists. The point being if you were the pre-eminent power of this world, a large chunk of your efforts would be directed towards maintaining status quo (known as stablity in polite circles) where it suits and furthers your pre-eminence or encouraging change where ever it suits your purposes or pre-eminence.

To rid Pakistan off its terrorist hordes does serve to protect and enhance US pre-eminence as these terrorists have been well known to operate against US repeatedly, but to ditch that same Pakistan does not make sense to the US mainly because it will lead to either Pakistan's collapse (in worse case) or Pakistan's realizing that it has to make peace with India to continue. Either case (collapse or peace) would ultimately disturb the current global geo-political status quo by make it much much easier for India to extend its direct or indirect hegemony (through trade, bollywood, tourism, travel, etc) right into Pakistan and Afghanistan.

While US definitely does not have anything "against" India, as the pre-eminent power of the world, it definitely does not see extension of India's influence over Pakistan and Afghanistan as something that would be favorable to either US pre-eminence or interests (yet!).

A lot more things would have to go very seriously wrong in Pakistan for US to stop supporting Pakistan and allow India to extend its influence in Pak-Af region.

Dhiman,

This is one of the best worded explanation I have seen so far.

Very well said!!!

Regards.

[svinayak]

While US definitely does not have anything "against" India, as the pre-eminent power of the world, it definitely does not see extension of India's influence over Pakistan and Afghanistan as something that would be favorable to either US pre-eminence or interests (yet!).

A lot more things would have to go very seriously wrong in Pakistan for US to stop supporting Pakistan and allow India to extend its influence in Pak-Af region.

Does India has to 'wait'' for US to exit the region for India to extend its influence in the region.
India been in the region long before US or other powers have come here. Should India's influence over Pakistan and Afghanistan seen as something that would be favorable or not to US

[svinayak]

Osama bin Laden’s palatial hideout in the Pakistan town of Abbottabad is designed on a module that’s used by the US military for constructing secret sheds and bunker-type homes for top-notch officers on war fields.


Wow so they even based the plans on US standard plans! so once the place was located no problem for US to make mock-up for practice.

US type designs are only with Pakistan military and Pakistan companies since they have been working together for more than 30 years in the af Pak

[Gagan]

80 odd highly trained men against 5 men - it was a cakewalk in spite of the hype

Even if we say that the actual team that raided the compound was 15-20-25, we still have a huge numerical superiority at the very least, not to mention the huge difference in training, equipment and support that weighed in favour of the SEALs

the most gruelling part was getting there and getting out and that was really intel and the airborne part of the ops

The flight time from Bagram Air Base (which is about 50 Kms north of Kabul) (Bagram-Kakul is 380-400 Kms) would be say about 90-100 mins
Jalalabad Airfield is closer to Kakul - about 250-270 odd Kms. Flight time ~ 60 mins.

Total flight time over hostile territory (210 Kms one way) 50-60 mins.

Another point:
Bagram-Kakul-Bagram is a good 800 Kms.
Add 40 mins in the air to this, and we get a total flight time of about 3-3.5 hours !!!
That is really long legged for a helo!

Now the UH-60 Black Hawk has a ferry range of about a 1000 Kms with two 1700 Litres drop tanks on the outside. I wonder if anyone would take a chopper with drop tanks into a firefight. Its average speed is about 270-300Kmph.
The Black hawk can carry about 10-11 troops and equipment.

The CH-47 Chinook has a range of about 2000 Kms, can carry 24-33 fully equipped troops, and has a speed of about 200 Kmph.
The chinook seems to be ideally suited as far as this operation is concerned in terms of range, stamina etc.

Because the Black Hawk is a bit short legged for this mission, I wonder if Tarbela was in some way involved in the scheme of things. Possibly as a launch off point for the mission for the shorter legged choppers. These choppers could have arrived a short while before at Tarbela, refuelled and then would have met up with the rest of the assault team somewhere.

Perhaps the Black hawks were the silent hawks and had the actual assault teams on board. Two of them would be able to land about 20 odd SEALs into the compound. The two chinooks would be able to land another 50-60 people between them.

So if I would theorize: 2 Silent Hawks, and 2 Chinooks. One Silent Hawk goes down, its 10-13 crew are divided between the two chinooks or a reserve chopper takes them. That means 4+1=5 or 6 choppers.

I wonder how the US managed this!

[ManuT]

Mr Musharraf said today, "The accusation of my having allowed intrusion into Pakistan by US forces chasing Osama Bin Laden is absolutely baseless. Never has this subject even been discussed between myself and President Bush leave aside allowing such freedom of action that would violate our sovereignty."

Liar {maybe not to Bush personally, but he has said in a TV interview from his Busharraf days. Wait for a few days}

The Guardian cited a former senior US counter-terrorism official as declaring, "Both sides also agreed that Islamabad would vociferously protest the incursion afterwards in keeping with public sensitivities."

Under the deal, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid on its soil in search of bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. "There was an agreement between Bush and Musharraf that if we knew where Osama was, we were going to come and get him," the US official was quoted as saying.

The Guardian said a senior Pakistani official confirmed that the deal had been struck originally by Mr Musharraf and renewed by the army during the "transition to democracy" - a six-month period from February 2008 when Mr Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/musha ... rts-104740

[Lalmohan]

al-q have been using US manuals on terrorism from the beginning - some of their early training/operational doctrine was developed by a former US army convert to the cause. and in all cases the conduit has been TSPA

bring on that cartoon of the cycle from unkil's haath of dollars to unkil's musharraf with bum

on helicopter ops - tarbela has come up from the very beginning as being one of the operating sites, particularly one of the paqui commentators was talking about it with auntie-burkha the same day

[Shaashtanga]

AoA-- Puki Army has its langoti in a twist.... "Pakistan army imposes silence on bin Laden house" -http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... ae9a35.401 .
I hope this caujes further eggjitement of firang newj channels over suppression of free speech and media by TSPA....

[Jarita]

If there is face saving going on by the Paquis, Amirkhan has done a good job of that in the past too
Wonder how many covert actions may have been taken against Osama in the past and failed i.e., How many Seal/Delta teams have been downed and we never hear about it?
Afterall, we only heard about the OBL episode after the US ensured that it was successful. Had it been a failure we would have never known and maybe some of the Seals would be declared missing in action in Afganistan.

[svinayak]

A lurker asked for opinion on this


I think the GOTUS made a call and informed the GoP/PA immediately upon entering Pak sovereign space. But it did not tell them about the intended target. Most likely, GOTUS said the flight was a routine Bagram to Tarbela flight consisting of four US choppers. PAF radar caught the signature, but Tabela Dam airport has U.S. assests and possibly did not raise any undue suspicions amongst the PA. After having reached Tarbela, the Americans did the unthinkable. The choppers continued to fly for the next 40 miles (64 kms.) NE straight towards Abbottabad.

This sequence is mostly correct and PA was in the know that US choppers were inside the air space. The target was a surprise and also the twitter person who recorded the chopper presence found that it was strange for them to be in their region since it was not a war zone.

Notice that Attobabad is less than 100km from Indian border and may br 30 min from Srinagar airport.

[SaiK]

possibilities of carrying extra disposable fuel could there or in between re-fuel stop or airborne refueling done.

any possibilities of air dropping of helos from air like 007 bond!?

[svinayak]

Found this interesting from African (Kenyan) newspaper....

Osama was found in Pakistan. It had to be Pakistan. Pakistan is not a country, if we were to be completely honest.

It is India, with a crescent where the Wheel of Ashoka should be. Pakistan is a religious sentiment plotted on a map.

It was created under the delusion that Muslims and Hindus cannot co-exist, and its birth only exacerbated religious tensions in a volatile region.

(I wonder why India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan all played in the Cricket World Cup semis when they are essentially the same country).

Very simple observation but powerful
Pakistan is a religious sentiment to negate and destroy what is already present in the region.
It is a nationless state.

[Dhiman]

While US definitely does not have anything "against" India, as the pre-eminent power of the world, it definitely does not see extension of India's influence over Pakistan and Afghanistan as something that would be favorable to either US pre-eminence or interests (yet!).

A lot more things would have to go very seriously wrong in Pakistan for US to stop supporting Pakistan and allow India to extend its influence in Pak-Af region.

Does India has to 'wait'' for US to exit the region for India to extend its influence in the region.
India been in the region long before US or other powers have come here. Should India's influence over Pakistan and Afghanistan seen as something that would be favorable or not to US

I did not mean to take this line of thinking at all Sir. In fact, I am one of those who thinks it is India's destiny to naturally extend it's influence over Pakistan and Afghanistan. Whether that destiny happens in 10 years time or 50 years time is another issue. Also, an unstable Pakistan, under reasonable thinking, would actually be considered as an Invitation to India to extend its influence through Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The problem is that unlike their short-term thinking counterparts in US state department, long-term thinking MEA babu's don't believe in proactively identifying, manipulating, and neutralizing threats to interests and security. I am completely convinced that MEA actually thinks that if it sits around and does nothing for next 100 years, the Pakistan/Afghanistan problem will disappear by itself. This entire bureaucracy has become so lathargic that they can only do things that are possible while sitting behind a desk or yak-yakkiing through their traps. They are incapable of doing real ground work and taking action. Their only claim to fame is to maintain some sort of Gandhian image of India abroad since that actually takes the least effort to do (and suits the purposes of politicians and babus who wish to rob the country dry hiding behind the facade of Gandhian values).

So in short, India does not and should not "wait" for anything, but as a result of an ineffective MEA bureaucracy the end result is effectively the same. The MEA babus will wait for 500 years if need be since that requires the least amount of actual work. Best of all their lazyness comes out of a sense of fear of unknown rather than decision making groundwork.

Taking action is not meant of these highly enlightened philosopher babus of MEA, its better left to the lowly serfs of US state department who still think that they have to work for their paychecks.

[sanjeevpunj]

The day isnt far when Pakistan will be totally PWNED by USA.

[abhijitm]

In the CBS interview Obama very clearly said he did not inform pakis about the raid. All the while I am on the side of 'pakis were informed'. Now I am thinking if Obama lied then its a very risky lie. Because then someone in ISI or PA can come out and say "no, we were informed and forced to co-operate..." something like that. That is falling flat on face for Obama.

[Lalmohan]

us wanted to prove that pak was out of the loop
catching obl was far more important than keeping the b*tch happy

[KLNMurthy]

I hope it is the Kashmiri who replaces OBL. His profile needs to be raised.

Please let it be Kashmiri. Can't ask for a better name. Yindoo bania ploy onlee.

[Y. Kanan]

The moment I saw that OBL had been killed and that the Pakis had been caught red-handed sheltering him, I said to myself "Wow, that happened exactly as I thought it would." I always said if OBL was ever caught or killed it would be in spite of the ISI's efforts to hide him. My second thought was "This won't change the US-Pak relationship at all. The Pakis will continue to support terrorists and US aid will continue to flow."

It sucks being right all the time.

This thread is has now gone one for many days and in that time, I think much typing and mental energy has been wasted at analyzing the fallout of Osama's death. It should have been obvious from the very start, when both Obama and his underlings refused to condemn Pakistan's perfidy, that nothing was going to change. Once again, we Indians spent a lot of time fantasizing about the US solving our Pakistan problem for us (which admittedly, they are morally obligated to do ... if the world was fair and morals had any impact on US policy). And once again, we are disappointed when we see that no such action is forthcoming.

It would be a lot more productive if we just faced reality and stopped fantasizing about scenarios that will never happen. Though I'll admit this would make for a much less active forum...

[chaanakya]

In the CBS interview Obama very clearly said he did not inform pakis about the raid. All the while I am on the side of 'pakis were informed'. Now I am thinking if Obama lied then its a very risky lie. Because then someone in ISI or PA can come out and say "no, we were informed and forced to co-operate..." something like that. That is falling flat on face for Obama.

If that has any basis in provable facts, I am sure it would come out at the right moment. You certainly brought out an interesting idea. Pakis can blackmail om baba as 2012 is election year.

[Shaashtanga]

The Samson option (that is actually the Israeli name IIRC) is not credible- Pakistan wouldn't buy it even as a bluff.

Vietnam and Korea both lacked use of nuclear weapons of any kind - and both were non-nuclear nations backed by nuclear powers. Pakistan is a nuclear power of its own. That option isn't something that gets bandied about lightly, it has no credibility that way.

JMHO.... Unkil's Samson option is very credible in case of beghairat TSPA / ISI / Pukistan.... I don't think Vietkong or NoKo were recipients of Unkil's bakseesh... When Unkil scares TSPA with something similar to Samson option of bombing back to stone age threat, rest assure they cheerfully GUBO... I liked the term VikramS used in one of his posts above "Public ChreerHaran" of TSPA.... but it is somewhat contradictory in the sense that you can only do haran of cheer of someone who has cheer and TSPA / ISI / Pukistan has Zero of that..

[ManuT]

In the CBS interview Obama very clearly said he did not inform pakis about the raid. All the while I am on the side of 'pakis were informed'. Now I am thinking if Obama lied then its a very risky lie. Because then someone in ISI or PA can come out and say "no, we were informed and forced to co-operate..." something like that. That is falling flat on face for Obama.

If Obama lied it will be because TSP begged them to.

[svinayak]

http://www.hafsite.org/HAF_Assails_Paki ... &utm_term=

Hindu Human Rights Group Assails Pakistan's Harboring Of Bin Laden - Emblematic Of "Double Game"

Washington, D.C. (May 2, 2011) - The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) hailed the heroism of U.S. Armed Forces and congratulated the Obama Administration today for the successful operation in Abbotabad, Pakistan that ended the life of Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda and mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks. That bin Laden’s end came in a compound so close to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where some have speculated he had been hiding and operating his terror base for several years, is emblematic of “profound intertwining “of the Pakistani military and intelligence service with terror networks, asserted HAF leaders as they assessed the aftermath.

“Today, a man who slaughtered thousands of innocent Americans was brought to justice despite being harbored in the heartland of Pakistan, but the war on terror is far from over,” said Suhag A. Shukla, Esq., HAF Managing Director and Legal Counsel. “The Pakistani military, that has institutionalized terror as a proxy war weapon, stands exposed despite dubious assertions to the contrary, of its close relationships with al Qaeda and the Taliban. The real test for the global community is whether it is brave enough to call out and expose Pakistan’s double game.”

According to public records, since 2001, the US has given Pakistan over $17 billion in military and humanitarian aid to fight Islamic insurgency and invest in its infrastructure. But no serious progress has been made in dismantling the Islamist terror infrastructure that fueled a decades old conflict in India’s state of Jammu and Kashmir, supports the ongoing instability in Afghanistan and perpetrated the Mumbai attacks of 2008. Shukla pointed out that HAF’s upcoming annual Hindu human rights report once again censures Pakistan for serious persecution of Hindus and other minorities in Pakistan, and that they have been “disenfranchised for decades by the same ideology that brought attacks to America’s borders.”

“In a country where the rule of law affords little protection to Hindus, Christians and Ahmaddiyas, and brave public officials are assassinated when they dare to speak, how can ordinary citizens expect justice for crimes perpetrated against them,” asked Jay Kansara, HAF’s Associate Director. “With bin Laden gone, U.S. engagement with Pakistan should not end here but rather continue with open dialog regarding its fledgling human rights record. We urge the Obama Administration to put heightened pressure on the Pakistani Government to protect their religious minorities and adequately serve justice to those who perpetuate intolerance.”

[vijayk]

The moment I saw that OBL had been killed and that the Pakis had been caught red-handed sheltering him, I said to myself "Wow, that happened exactly as I thought it would." I always said if OBL was ever caught or killed it would be in spite of the ISI's efforts to hide him. My second thought was "This won't change the US-Pak relationship at all. The Pakis will continue to support terrorists and US aid will continue to flow."

It sucks being right all the time.

This thread is has now gone one for many days and in that time, I think much typing and mental energy has been wasted at analyzing the fallout of Osama's death. It should have been obvious from the very start, when both Obama and his underlings refused to condemn Pakistan's perfidy, that nothing was going to change. Once again, we Indians spent a lot of time fantasizing about the US solving our Pakistan problem for us (which admittedly, they are morally obligated to do ... if the world was fair and morals had any impact on US policy). And once again, we are disappointed when we see that no such action is forthcoming.

It would be a lot more productive if we just faced reality and stopped fantasizing about scenarios that will never happen. Though I'll admit this would make for a much less active forum...

Well... Many BRFites know and insist that we have to solve our issues. It is the political class of India and idiotic DDM who keep on dreaming that this Pakistani problem will be solved by being subservient to the west.

The purpose of the discussion is to analyze the situation and collectively learn new things. BRF also introduces the Indian perspective to newbies as opposed to left, sickular DDM who have agendas and peanut brains.

I have to admit I was also conned most of the time while I was watching the DDM media. BRF discussions were eye openers to me even if I disagree with some view points. BRF discussions also help people articulate our view point to the world. Look! The people in the west realized the beast of Pakistani terrorism. Unfortunately, their focus will turn away in few weeks and the John Kerry types will go back to appease the terrorist policies. We need to keep reinforcing the view by contributing to the blogs, discussions and help people a strong opinion. If not this generation, the next generation of leaders and diplomats should not be fooled by the evil Pukestan.

[MurthyB]

The watery grave:

[SaiK]

paki black and shack mail will not work anymore for omie.. the main enemy #1 obl is dead, and will continue to gain his marks over there. what is important for the khans, would be economy and other ailing markets rather pakistan. Everyone in the world knows about pakis, and don't put the khans way of life like dhoti shivering yindoos, where we fear local backlash on everything we say against our dead enemies. If the khans thinks he need to convert pakistan into another iraq, it would not take military decision but an economic one. The mil expenses are already hurting, and the khans have done their job.. obl is dead.

Now, the new leader has to piss off the khans again by another 911, and it is next to impossible. Either pakis accept to the khans, and get their $3b condom aid, or nothing and keep protesting. pakis are totally screwed here, as long as we don't disturb this tiff as ramana put it. We need this at least us-paki tussle for the next few years.

[Baikul]

I hope it is the Kashmiri who replaces OBL. His profile needs to be raised.

Oh yes, more of this please.

This fellow needs a long and painful termination.

[saadhak]

Pervez Musharraf was a commando, will be interesting to find out if he and this Kashmiri guy were trained in same academy.

Their paths have certainly crossed on a few occasions.
http://news.rediff.com/special/2009/sep ... rorist.htm

On the morning of February 26, Kashmiri conducted a guerrilla operation against the Indian Army in the Nakial sector. He crossed the LoC with 25 fighters from his 313 brigade, surrounded an Indian Army bunker and threw grenades inside. He also kidnapped an injured Indian Army officer who he later killed brutally.
He returned to Pakistan with the Indian Army officer's head in his bag and presented it to senior Pakistan army officers. President Musharraf, who was also then the army chief, awarded his Rs 100,000 for this action.

After 9/11, Musharraf banned Kashmiri's outfit.
He was arrested after an attempt on Musharraf's life in December 2003 and tortured during the interrogation.

He also had Syed Salahuddin's support. Kashmiri taking over AQ will indeed give a lot of 'good press' to the Kashmir cause. Tathastu!

[Gagan]

One of the news channels was mentioning this about a week or so back.
OBL's hideout was specially constructed.

There was a layer of sheet metal in between the walls so as to make that building bulletproof.

I guess this is what Safari constructions was upto.

This Dawood Ibrahim - Osama Bin Laden circle is closing it seems.

[Aditya G]

...http://news.rediff.com/special/2009/sep ... rorist.htm

On the morning of February 26, Kashmiri conducted a guerrilla operation against the Indian Army in the Nakial sector. He crossed the LoC with 25 fighters from his 313 brigade, surrounded an Indian Army bunker and threw grenades inside. He also kidnapped an injured Indian Army officer who he later killed brutally.
He returned to Pakistan with the Indian Army officer's head in his bag and presented it to senior Pakistan army officers. President Musharraf, who was also then the army chief, awarded his Rs 100,000 for this action.

After 9/11, Musharraf banned Kashmiri's outfit.
He was arrested after an attempt on Musharraf's life in December 2003 and tortured during the interrogation.

He also had Syed Salahuddin's support. Kashmiri taking over AQ will indeed give a lot of 'good press' to the Kashmir cause. Tathastu!

Is there any corroboration to this fantasy story of beheading an IA officer and all. We should stop spreading such nonsense.

[saip]

One way of finding if this is true is to suggest to Arnab when he gets Mushy as his guest next time to question Mushy about it.

[VikramS]

AdityaG:

A long long time ago I had heard that Indian forces were doing the same across the LOC, and on a much larger scale. That was India's non-state response during the peak of the Kashmir jehad. This Ilyas Kashmir incident was supposed to be retribution.

Shastanga:

The US does not need to use nukes when it can daisy-cut. Nukes are strategic weapons; and they have not been used for more than 65 years. No one sane will use a nuke just because some special forces are caught in a fire-fight. There is something called an escalation ladder. So please refrain from ungrounded speculation.

Singha:

Even if there were armored vehicles available and ready at PMA, the chances are that they would not go in with their guns blazing. As you had quite correctly speculated, the fire-fighting was minimal and was over within the first 10-15 minutes. So by the time any TSPA unit got to the scene, they would have found soldiers, clearly identifiable as Yanks, along with some choppers indulging in some mop up operation.

If you are a TSPA officer, the first instinct then would not be to go in with guns blazing. He would know that there is possibly a Javelin or Hellfire, tracking his vehicle from a drone above. They would engage however, if they got orders from their superiors. The element of surprise meant that the chain of command had little time to act or give some orders.

To me it is clear that if the TSP had been informed, they would have tried some stunt to save OBL. It does not take more than a minute or two for the bird to fly. For all we know, OBL had a dedicated alternate hiding place somewhere inside PMA Kakul. There was no way the Seals would or could have engaged him inside the PMA.

The years of success seems to have made the ISI and OBL's handlers very lax. It was the laxity which allowed the operation to go with out any hitch. TSP did not have any information which could have been useful in a tactical manner.

[shyamd]

Chase for mulla omar has started. Both are said to be on the hunt for him.

[saadhak]

On the morning of February 26, Kashmiri conducted a guerrilla operation against the Indian Army in the Nakial sector. He crossed the LoC with 25 fighters from his 313 brigade, surrounded an Indian Army bunker and threw grenades inside. He also kidnapped an injured Indian Army officer who he later killed brutally.
He returned to Pakistan with the Indian Army officer's head in his bag and presented it to senior Pakistan army officers. President Musharraf, who was also then the army chief, awarded his Rs 100,000 for this action.

Is there any corroboration to this fantasy story of beheading an IA officer and all. We should stop spreading such nonsense.

A simple google search will give a lot of news articles on this - Indian and foreign. Even the date of Feb 26 2000 is consistent. Unless of course this is a lie that has been repeated a 1000 times.

[Mahendra]

Chase for mulla omar has started. Both are said to be on the hunt for him.

Who are 'both' saar?

[IndraD]

On Al jazeera they are showing interview with body guard of OBL who lives in Yeman now, he said after Pak detonated nuclear device, OBL sent congratulatory letter to Pak's PM , he wrote that this nuke should be used for protecting islam and not in the event of a dispute against India, this gives credibility to what RudraD sir wrote about him.

[svinayak]

SEAL TEAM HEROS KILLS OSAMA BIN LADIN OBL USAMA SENT

[shyamd]

Pak will launch some big drama operation in Kwetta soon. Pak will get him b4 unkil.

Supposedly, the end of this will result in several big names in arab/TSPian intelligence services being asked to resign. Chotta baccha's of agencies wont do this time.

[svinayak]

From email

A US-Pakistan-Afghanistan-Taliban Package
The Sale. The Price. The Deal

It is an open secret among the counterterrorism agencies engaged in the war on al Qaeda that the United States and Pakistani military and intelligence were in some sort of rapport before and during the US special raid of May 2 that ended the life of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, in the North West Frontier of Pakistan, DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports.
The battle of contradictory accounts Washington and Islamabad were conducting this week on what really happened in the raided villa will not be allowed to get out of hand because, "Tomorrow is another day for the war on terrorism and a united effort for gains," one Western intelligence officer commented.
"At the same time," said the source, "While not slamming the door, neither are the Americans or the Pakistanis letting each other completely off the hook. Both want to make sure that their opposite number doesn't go it alone."
The verbal sparring between Washington and Islamabad is a feature of the following scenario:
1. The two governments are contradicting each other on the degree of cooperation between them: US officials deny Pakistan knowledge of or cooperation in the operation whereas Pakistani officials insist it was a joint venture and refuse to back down.
Lieut. Gen. Asad Durrani, former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services-Intelligence agency, ISI, said Thursday, May 5, that it was "inconceivable" for his government to have been ignorant of the US commando raid on the bin Laden's compound, but are officially denying it to stave off domestic backlash.

Mystery of the 25-minute camera blackout

2. The US-Pakistani cooperation argument threads through the questions surrounding the target's positive identification.
White House Spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that the US Navy Seals who raided the house could not have been mistaken about Bin Laden's identity. He did not explain why.
Western intelligence officers with experience in such operations say there is no such thing as zero error - unless someone already present on the scene identifies the target from his own firsthand knowledge or a laser indicator points straight at him.
Durrani, though officially retired, would not have spoken without clearance from his former masters. He went on to say that Pakistani intelligence was disavowing any role in the US operation as a "political" maneuver necessary to rebut charges of working too closely with the Americans.
"It is …likely that they did know [about the raid]," he said. "It is not conceivable that it was done without the involvement of Pakistani security forces at some stage. They were involved and they were told they were in position. The army chief was in his office, the cordons had been thrown around that particular place. The Pakistani helicopters were also in the air so that indicates that it was involved."
3. One of the mysteries surrounding the episode concerned the 25-minute blackout during which live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US commandos was cut off. On Wednesday, CIA Chief Leon Panetta said in an interview with PBS: "I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where… we really didn't know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information."

Photos leaked of three unarmed men in pools of blood

Shortly after he made these comments, the Reuters agency in Islamabad announced that it had acquired photographs taken about an hour after the US assault on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad showing three dead men lying in pools of blood with no weapons in sight. The photos were taken by a Pakistani security official who entered the compound after the early morning raid on Monday.
Those leaked photos sent a double-barreled signal from Islamabad to Washington:
• Stop saying there are no pictures of what happened inside the building. There are and we have them. That does not mean we will publish them all at this time.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources note that the existence of such pictures would confirm the remarks affirming Pakistani involvement in the bin Laden hit one way or another by Pakistani Foreign minister Salman Bashar on Wednesday and by Lieut. Gen. Durrani, who Thursday detailed Pakistani input and emphasized that "they were in position."
• By leaking the photographic evidence of the bodies of three unarmed men, Islamabad sought to stop the unending flow of conflicting versions put out by the Obama administration about what went on inside the villa and set the record straight about Pakistan's contribution to its success.
Before that, a statement from Islamabad had forced the White House spokesman to backtrack on an earlier statement that Bin Laden had died in a firefight and admit he was unarmed when killed.

The helicopter crash was the only digression from the agreed plan

Wednesday, US sources produced a new version which claimed that although Bin Laden was indeed unarmed, his family members, including his son, were armed and fired at the US forces.
The Pakistani comeback came in the form of the photographs leaked to Reuters which showed unarmed, unidentified Pakistanis lying dead in the death room of the villa.
The absence of weapons on those photos not only rebutted oft-amended accounts from Washington but proved that the al Qaeda leader and the people around him felt safe enough under the protection of Pakistani intelligence and military to dispense with weapons.
The verbiage flying back and forth between Washington and Islamabad has revealed the contours of the assistance Pakistan rendered to the mission to kill Bin Laden.
First of all, the operation was carried out on the basis of precise information relayed to Washington about the activities in the villa – Bin Laden's movements, routines and possibly the times he went to bed. The airspace over Abbottabad was kept clear of traffic to allow the American helicopters to touch down, drop the troops and take off without interference.
The only digression from the joint plan known to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources was the crash of one of the four American helicopters taking part in the operation. Washington reported the copter made a hard landing because of a mechanical fault and no American soldiers were injured. Other sources claim that it was fired on in an attack that took the Americans and Pakistanis by surprise and that some injuries must have been unavoidable.

What business did three top Pakistani officials contract in Kabul?

After establishing the fact of US-Pakistani collaboration in terminating Osama bin Laden, the whys and wherefores remain to be addressed.
At this early date, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources cannot precisely name which members of the Pakistani government, military or intelligence elites worked with Washington on the plan, or whether only certain factions were involved.
Most Western intelligence agencies with a presence in Pakistan incline to view that some members of all three communities may have had a hand in the US operation which was essentially the outcome of a quid pro quo deal with the Obama administration and the CIA, whose broad terms are disclosed here:
We turn Osama bin Laden over, you terminate him and together we can embark on the road toward ending the Afghanistan war.
In the next part of the scenario, Pakistani military intelligence undertakes to bring the Taliban to the table for negotiating the war's conclusion. In return, the US and Afghanistan will guarantee to support Pakistan's interests in Kabul.
This would entail Washington and Kabul abandoning their evenhanded policy in the contest between Pakistan and India for influence in the war-torn country and throw their weight behind Islamabad.
Monday, April 25, a week before the Bin Laden raid, the head of Pakistan's Army Staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, took part in the "passing out parade" at the prestigious Kakul military academy in Abbottabad, Pakistan's West Point. The reviewing stand on which he stood was 400 meters from the bin Laden villa.
Addressing the ceremony, Kayani said the "back of terrorism" in Pakistan had been broken, thanks to the sacrifices of Pakistan's soldiers.

A formula emerging for ending the Afghan War

The impression gained in many Western intelligence circles was that Gen. Kayani knew that the al Qaeda leader's end was near and chose his words to correspond with the line Islamabad has taken since the event. He is also believed to have used his visit to Abbottabad for a last inspection to make sure that the US raid went smoothly.
Those circles point tellingly to the visit Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Gen. Kayani and ISI Director-General Ahmed Shuja Pasha paid to Kabul, Saturday, April 16, three weeks before the Abbottabad operation. This top-level Pakistani party is believed to have tied up the last ends of the deal between the three partners, the US, Pakistan and the Afghan government, the trigger for which was to be the death of the al Qaeda leader.
From the American perspective, his death achieved the objective for which the US went to war in Afghanistan in 2001straight after al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on America: Osama bin Laden, who masterminded those attacks after first trying and failing to destroy New York's Twin Towers in 1993, the evil genius of global jihadist terror, was dead at the hands of American troops. Even the high command which had supported him in Afghanistan and Pakistan had more or less broken up.
And so, President Obama is free to set a tight timeline for bringing American troops home.
The deal has placed Afghan President Hamid Karzai within reach of his goals of getting US and NATO forces out of his country and forming a power-sharing government with the Taliban.
The next move in the game is up to Islamabad: The Taliban's hard core leaders, headed by Mullah Omar, have yet to be brought to the negotiating table, a maneuver that will require time and delicate handling.
Much will depend on whether Taliban decides to stage a major attack to avenge the death of the al Qaeda leader or leaves it to another ally or branch of bin Laden's organization.
If Taliban opts for revenge against the Americans who killed its close ally and partner instead of diplomacy, the White House's plan will be thrown off course and the Afghan War will continue with greater intensity than ever.

Under ISI Protection and Care
Osama bin Laden's Five or More Villa Hideouts in Pakistan

Up until May 2, 2011, Pakistan sheltered Osama bin Laden in protected and comfortable accommodation. Indeed, between 2004 and 2005, at least five fortified villa complexes like the one raided by US Special Forces in Abbottabad May 2 were provided for the al Qaeda leader's use as hideouts in different parts of Pakistan.
They were all located in upscale areas or near military facilities, one of them actually inside an army residential neighborhood near Karachi populated by officers of the rank of lieutenant colonel and higher. And, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources, when unoccupied by bin Laden, the walled homes often served Pakistani intelligence as safe houses or even holiday villas for high officers.
When Foreign Secretary Salman Bashar disclosed Wednesday, May 4 that information about the Abbottabad villa had been relayed to Washington two years ago, he added that there were "millions of other suspect locations" in other parts of Pakistan.
Some intelligence officials in the West wondered out loud this week how, in a country where the average man is no more than 1.60 meters in height, a two-meter tall Arab managed to escape notice when he stepped out on the roof of his house or a balcony for a breath of fresh air.
(The balconies, incidentally, were angled so as to obstruct snipers' aim from outside the compound.)
On those grounds alone, Pakistani intelligence, the ISI, or even his army neighbors would have known who was living there some of the time.
Another point that sticks out about those residences, assuming that Abbottabad was the template for his other secret bolt holes in Pakistan, is that they had no open or covered parking space. The most wanted terrorist in the world hunted by every Western secret service did not keep a getaway car ready to go. Neither were any helicopters set aside for his use at nearby Pakistan army facilities, some located less than half a kilometer from one of his makeshift residences.
That is not the only odd fact about Osama bin Laden's security arrangements.

Osama bin Laden would have been easier prey in 2007

Only two electrically-operated gates gave access to the compound behind the 3-5-meter high walls. Effective for keeping unwanted visitors out, a small number of armed men could have barred the two gates in a trice and caged him inside. No underground escape hatch had been tunneled under the house.
If attacked, therefore, the master terrorist would have found the jaws of his sanctuary snapping shut making it a trap.
Neither did the villa have a bunker or fortified room for protection against an exploding missile or bomb, such as is now standard in every government compound in the US, Pakistan and Arab countries. The Abbottabad house, astonishingly, too, was not fitted with alarms, whether sophisticated electronic sensors or even an ordinary burglar alarm.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence and counterterrorism sources disclose that when the occupants of those walled compounds, including bin Laden, decided to relocate, a long convoy of luxury limousines and buses turned up to collect them. The convoy would be kept waiting outside one of the gates for its passengers. But there were no guards covering the second gate against trespassers. The vehicles moved off without police or military escort.
According to our sources, these convoys commuted between bin Laden's different Pakistan addresses five to seven times a year between 2007 and early 2010. The schedule was then reduced to two or three trips. After September 2010, Bin Laden with family and entourage stayed put in Abbottabad.
The convoys moving up and down open roads every few months during 2007 would have presented an easier target operationally and intelligence-wise than a raid on a three-storey building. Yet the most notorious terrorist mastermind of the age was not attacked for four years, undoubtedly because the top US administration policy-makers had decided to hold back – until this month.

Inconsistencies and retractions

This means that President George W. Bush in his last two years in office and President Barack Obama, in the first two, decided not to authorize the Al Qaeda leader's slaying or capture.
(A separate article in this issue – Obama lever for the Muslim Brotherhood's Push for Power - analyzes the considerations holding them back.)
Two days after breaking the news of his death, the White House in Washington began to feel the backlash. Wednesday, May 4, the Pakistani government, fed up with taking the heat of accusations and innuendo in the US and West alleging that Osama bin Laden had been living under its Inter-Services-Intelligence agency's protection, hit back: Foreign Secretary Bashar disclosed that as far back as 2009, during the first year of Obama's office as president, the ISI had indicated to the CIA that the Abbottabad complex was a possible hideout for terrorists. Transfers of information had been intensified from November 2010.
The 2009 date offered by the Pakistani minister did not square with the one offered in Obama's first announcement early Monday, May 2, when he said the first lead to Bin Laden's whereabouts in Abbottabad reached him in August 2010.
Washington had made it easy for Islamabad to exploit the errors and gaps in the often conflicting American accounts of the affair. In one embarrassing climb-down, Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, admitted that the previous version of events – mostly from the chief US counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan – had been put out "with great haste." Contradicting earlier claims that the Al Qaeda leader had died while firing an automatic weapon at the US commandos or "in a firefight", the spokesman admitted "he was unarmed."
Likewise, the dramatic account of Bin Laden using his wife as a "human shield" and forcing her to sacrifice her life proved false. The woman was still alive and had been taken into Pakistani custody with several of his offspring.

Pakistanis walk a tight rope

More retracting, amending and revising lie ahead of the White House in the coming days, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report as more information spills out from outside sources - and not only from Pakistan. Allied intelligence services are briefing their governments on the Abbottabad raid from their own informants. More than one has termed the information issuing from Washington "most problematic."
The only witnesses to the event inside the Ben Laden villa aside from the 24 US Navy SEALs who carried out the operation are in Pakistani custody. Some were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. They are all under heavy ISI guard.
The Pakistani government will have no qualms about producing them and their testimonies in public to get the Americans off their backs. One high-ranking Western intelligence source commented: "It's clear that the Pakistanis are walking a real tightrope here."
On the one hand, they don't want it to be caught scheming with the Americans to liquidate Bin Laden for fear of vendettas launched against them by Al Qaeda and the Taliban. On the other hand, they feel that close military and intelligence cooperation with the United States is becoming dangerous to their national-security interests on the Indian subcontinent.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources single out four anomalies in Washington's presentation of the operation which terminated the life of the al Qaeda leader:

Osama bin Laden put his security in Pakistani hands

1. President Obama and others have lauded the raid as an extraordinarily brilliant, brave and high-precision feat, when in fact most military experts rate it a routine military operation like "the hundreds of raids carried out almost nightly by American and other Western forces in dozens of locations in Afghanistan and Iraq" or by other armies engaged in counter-terror combat like the Israeli Defense Forces on the West Bank.
There was nothing complicated about the targeted building to raise exceptional difficulty, they said. The planners and officers had all the necessary military and intelligence information they needed to go forward with the operation and safely predict its successful outcome, namely the al Qaeda leader's death. Therefore a small team was enough to do the job without the need for air cover or a back-up force for unexpected trouble.
2. Since that outcome was foreseen by both by the Americans and Pakistanis, the questions remaining to be answered are: Why did Washington pick May 2011 for the operation and why did the Pakistanis play along?
(A separate item in this issue discloses the secret CIA-ISI deal)
3. From the way he was killed, it was obvious that the White House had decided that an American soldier would put a put a bullet in his head rather than use unpiloted drones to fire missiles into his bedroom, whose exact location was known in advance.
Why then is Washington prevaricating on this point?
4. The only weapons fired in the Abbottabad villa belonged to the US commandos. It would therefore seem that Bin Laden either had no armed bodyguards on the premises or none were around to stop the raiders climbing the stairs to his bedroom. Their absence would suggest that the al Qaeda leader relied on Pakistani security agencies to protect him and had placed his security in their hands. Because he had a deal with the ISI, it made sense for his havens to be located close to Pakistani military facilities – for protection. It also explained why the vehicles carrying him between secret residences required no armed escort and why he didn't bother to outfit them with alarm systems.


Why May 2, 2011 and not 2007?
Osama bin Laden's Death as Obama's Lever for Muslim Brotherhood Rule

White House procrastination in ordering the death of Osama bin Laden spans three US presidencies.
In the four years from 1996 until 2000 (one year before the 9/11 attacks on American), the CIA director of the day George Tenet and the heads of the agency's Counterterrorist Center-CTC, produced no less than ten plans for eliminating him.
President Bill Clinton rejected them all. He was completely caught up at the time in a major effort to bring about a final Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. Even in the face of intelligence warnings that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was into his last preparations for war on Israel, Clinton and his advisers decided to put the al Qaeda operation on hold lest his death inflame Muslims worldwide and put a spoke in the peace process which topped his agenda. The US president calculated that once a peace accord was in the bag and the looming war averted, America's standing in Muslim eyes would be solid enough to withstand the earth tremors raised by taking out bin Laden.
But his timing was out. The Palestinian (intifada) war was launched in September 2000 and raged until Arafat's defeat and death in late 2004 four years later. In that time, Bin Laden and his followers imbibed much innovative terrorist tradecraft from the Palestinians which they put to use in the coming decade, such as how to rig car bombs, assemble explosive vests for suicide bombers and hijack airliners, which they later wielded as weapons of mass destruction.

Bush targeted Zarqawi in Iraq, Clinton prioritized Palestinian-Israel peace

His successor George W. Bush declared war on Al Qaeda after the 9/11 terrorist atrocity claimed nearly 3,000 American lives. His handling of bin Laden had three stages.
In the first, trom 2001 until 2004, no reliable intelligence was available on the Al Qaeda leader's whereabouts. In 2004, a year after America's invasion of Iraq, Bush shifted the onus of his counter-al Qaeda strategy to Iraq and focused on targeting Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the organization's head of its operation in that country.
The US president reasoned that the Jordanian Zarqawi was the most brilliant operations commander al Qaeda had ever fielded. Unless he was destroyed, he would be certain to succeed Bin Laden, who appeared to be weakening. The al Qaeda leader was thought to be grooming the Jordanian to succeed him over the head of his Egyptian lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri.
In June 2006, American forces managed to kill Zarqawi, so ending an exceptionally savage two-year career.
The previous year, the Americans received their first tip about the villa compound where Bin Laden was living in Pakistan.
Still, for the next two years, President Bush decided to press on and finish laying the foundations for an American victory over al Qaeda in Iraq, bringing it to fruition in 2007 by means of the famous US troop surge.
That victory, the Bush White House was convinced, would seriously diminish al Qaeda's top man and reduce him in the coming years to spending all his time moving from one hideout to another on the run from pursuit.
Technically speaking, Bush got it right. But in practical and historical terms, he missed a great opportunity to finish the arch-terrorist for good and make good on his premature "Mission accomplished!" boast.
Like his father, President George Bush Sr., who in 1991, failed to follow through on the Gulf War by taking Baghdad and removing Saddam Hussein, the son George left a toxic loose end hanging and ready to snap back.

Osama bin Laden's death as a lever for US-Muslim reconciliation

When Barack Obama followed the second Bush into the White House in January 2009, his mind was fixed on three overriding ambitions: He determined to show Americans and the world that war was not the only way to solve international conflicts and promote American interests; multilateral diplomacy must take the place of armed conflict. Another was to achieve a historic US-Muslim reconciliation alongside the demise of radical Islamic terror, first and foremost al Qaeda's war on America.
Unlike Clinton and Bush, Obama decided that eliminating Osama bin Laden would serve his goals, provided he could make it the lever for his outreach to the Muslim world. But like Clinton, he made a permanent Israel-Palestinian a cornerstone of his policy.
Two months ago, on March 6, the Washington Post offered a pointer to President Obama's overall vision:
"The roots of the (US) policy shift (in the Middle East) go back to Obama's first days in office and his feeling that America's relationship with the Arab world was broken," the WP reported. "Though Obama seemed to be accommodating the region's authoritarian leaders, in August 2010, he issued Presidential Study Directive 11, asking agencies to prepare for change. This document cited 'evidence of growing citizen discontent with the region's regimes' and warned that 'the region is entering a critical period of transition.'
The president asked his advisers to 'manage these risks by demonstrating to the people of the Middle East and North Africa the gradual but real prospect of greater political openness and improved governance.'"
This was an astonishing public admission, which was first cited by DEBKA-Net-Weekly in Issue 485 of March 18 (Obama's New Mid East Strategy Stalls). It implied that Washington was steering the Arab revolt, or 'Arab spring', through Obama's Presidential Study Directive 11.

Presidential Study Directive 11 gets going

Our Washington sources note that when, early Monday morning, May 2,Obama announced Bin Laden's death, he spoke of the first lead to his whereabouts (in the Abbottabad villa) reaching him last August:
"Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to Bin Laden," he said - although Wednesday, May 4, the Pakistanis said Washington was informed of this intelligence with low intensity as early as the beginning of 2009 and with greater intensity starting from September 2010.
What is important to note here is that August was month that Directive No. 11 was issued and therefore a watershed date for President Obama.
Bin Laden's death like the Arab Spring were not ends in themselves, but steps towards the objective on which the US president has set his sights.
Our Middle East sources report that this objective, word of which has begun circulating around intelligence circles in the region, has been brought to the notice of the Saudi royal family, the military junta in Cairo, the presidential palace in Damascus and the Israeli Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem: President Obama's ultimate goal is to confer on the Muslim Brotherhood the legitimacy to assume power.
After Osama bin Laden's elimination, Obama is raring to go forward to fulfill the vision outlined in his Study Directive 11 and raise the Brotherhood to power-sharing status as a force for Islamic moderation able to counteract Al Qaeda-type radicalism.
Middle East sources find evidence of the US president's impatience in the Palestinian unity pact Mahmoud Abbas for Fatah and Khaled Meshaal for Hamas signed in Cairo on May 4 for ending their four-year Palestinian feud. This pact consummated a key component of the Obama master plan.

Separating the extremists from the moderates

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned the pact as "a mortal blow to peace and a victory for terror." In private conversation in Cairo, our sources quote Abbas asking his Egyptian hosts rhetorically: Why are the Israelis complaining to me – they should complain to Obama. Hamas is an offshoot of the Egyptian and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood branches. "I am only acting out his guidelines by helping the Brotherhood's integration in Middle East governance."
In Syria, President Bashar Assad is not just fighting a popular uprising against his repressive regime; he is desperate to crush the Muslim Brotherhood which would rise in the wake of the opposition's victory and wreak its revenge for the slaughter his father President Hafez Assad inflicted on its members in Hama 39 years ago.
(See the separate item in this issue on the conflict in Syria.)
While Presidents Bush and Clinton declined to incorporate the al Qaeda leader's demise in their active policies, for Obama it was of pivotal importance. He was also keen to show American soldiers performing the deed.
Obama was sending out a signal that Muslim pragmatists and extremists would be treated very differently by his administration: While the former would be encouraged, any radical circles in the Muslim Brotherhood trying to move into the positions of power his policy had carved out for their movement would receive short shrift – witness, Osama bin Laden's fate.
More than one Middle East ruler is disquieted by what is seen by some as a dangerous bee in the American president's bonnet, fearing he may not realize that by putting his hand in the Muslim world, he is playing with fire.