Osama bin Laden's life in Pakistan

A leaked report reveals new details, as well as a nation's vulnerabilities.

|
AP/File
This undated file photo shows Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.

A high-level, independent Pakistani commission, set up after the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, spent two years interviewing 200 people and reviewing thousands of documents. Its findings were suppressed until a leaked copy was published by Al Jazeera English. Here's some of what it reveals:  

Q: How did Mr. bin Laden live in Pakistan undetected?

The report bluntly faults "collective incompetence and negligence." Page after page describes near misses, complacency, inefficiency, and negligence.

At one point, he was stopped by a traffic cop for speeding, but his Kuwaiti guard "quickly settled" the matter. (It's unclear whether the officer was bribed or unaware or both.)

When bin Laden wanted to buy the Abbottabad compound in 2005, he did so under a pseudonym and despite regulations to prevent foreigners from buying land there. The law also requires a face-to-face consultation, which was (and commonly is) ignored, says the report.

Bin Laden also went to great lengths to avoid detection: He wore a cowboy hat and walked under grape arbors when outdoors to avoid being spotted from the air. Four electric and gas meters were installed at the property to disguise the excessive use of both utilities.

Q: How was the US raid accomplished so easily?

"According to one American account, the mission was as easy as 'mowing the lawn,' " the commissioners write. A major embarrassment for Pakistan was that the US helicopters had been out of Pakistani airspace for 20 minutes before Pakistan scrambled its jets.

The report also states that the raiders had lots of unseen help.

The US helicopters "were probably guided by ground operators" outside the compound, the report says. It notes reports of "suspicious activities" indicating CIA involvement, such as the cutting of trees to clear the helicopters' approach, the renting of a house near the compound by supposed employees of the US Agency for International Development, and the movement of four or five Land Cruisers from the US Embassy in Islamabad, probably filled with CIA agents for backup.

Q: Were Pakistani government officials sheltering bin Laden?

Its sharpest criticism is for the many near misses and "breathtaking incompetence and irresponsibility." Taken together, these "added up to something that should not be so easily explained away. Taken together they suggested the possibility of something more sinister."

The report does not rule out government complicity in bin Laden's being in Pakistan: "Given the length of stay and the changes of residence of [bin Laden] and his family ... the possibility of some such direct or indirect and 'plausibly deniable' support cannot be ruled out."

Q: How long had bin Laden been in Pakistan?

He and his family reportedly entered Pakistan in mid-2002, spending time in the frontier city of Peshawar and in the restive tribal agencies on the border. He then moved to the Swat Valley, then a well-known tourist area of Pakistan. About a month later he moved to Haripur, and then – with wives, children, and grandchildren – to Abbottabad in 2005.

At one point, the daughter of one of the compound's guards recognized a TV image of the man she knew as "poor uncle." When she brought it up, the family's TV privileges were revoked.

Q: Has the raid had an enduring effect on US-Pakistan ties?

Washington and Islamabad have never really trusted each other, especially in the past decade.

"[The US-Pakistan relationship] is not rooted in a tradition of shared culture, political perceptions and strategic interests," the report says. "More often it has pretended to be a strategic relationship without being one, except for brief durations of overlapping interests."

Seth Oldmixon of the nonprofit Americans for Democracy and Justice in Pakistan says the leak may help "by introducing a much-needed jolt of transparency" and serving as a catalyst for discussing where the nations' interests converge and diverge. It could also give Pakistanis a helpful, honest glimpse of the inner workings of their government.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Osama bin Laden's life in Pakistan
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-South-Central/2013/0718/Osama-bin-Laden-s-life-in-Pakistan
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe