ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON, (Reuters) - In 2003 or 2004, Pakistani intelligence agents trailed a suspected militant courier to a house in the picturesque hill town of Abbottabad in northern Pakistan. There, the agents determined that the courier would make contact with one of the world's most wanted men, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who had succeeded Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Muhammad as al Qaeda operations chief a few months earlier. Agents from Pakistan's powerful and mysterious Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as the ISI, raided a house but failed to find al-Libbi, a senior Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters this week.
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| Indonesia: The Al Kaida group, which took a public oath to avenge the death of Bin Laden |
Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf later wrote in his memoirs that an interrogation of the courier revealed that al-Libbi used three houses in Abbottabad, which sits some 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Islamabad. The intelligence official said that one of those houses may have been in the same compound where on May 1 U.S. special forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
It's a good story. But is it true? Pakistan's foreign ministry this week used the earlier operation as evidence of Pakistan's commitment to the fight against terrorism. You see, Islamabad seemed to be pointing out, we were nabbing bad guys seven years ago in the very neighborhood where you got bin Laden.
But U.S. Department of Defense satellite photos show that in 2004 the site where bin Laden was found this week was nothing but an empty field. A U.S. official briefed on the bin Laden operation told Reuters he had heard nothing to indicate there had been an earlier Pakistani raid.
There are other reasons to puzzle. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry says that Abbottabad, home to several military installations, has been under surveillance since 2003. If that's true, then why didn't the ISI uncover bin Laden, who U.S. officials say has been living with his family and entourage in a well-guarded compound for years? The answer to that question goes to the heart of the troubled relationship between Pakistan and the United States.
Washington has long believed that Islamabad, and especially the ISI, play a double game on terrorism, saying one thing but doing another.
MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE
Since 9/11 the United States has relied on Pakistan's military to fight al Qaeda and Taliban forces in the mountainous badlands along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
President George W. Bush forged a close personal relationship with military leader Musharraf.
But U.S. officials have also grown frustrated with Pakistan. While Islamabad has been instrumental in catching second-tier and lower ranked al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, and several operatives identified as al Qaeda "number threes" have either been captured or killed, the topmost leaders -- bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy Ayman al Zawahiri -- have consistently eluded capture.
The ISI, which backed the Taliban when the group came to power in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, seemed to turn a blind eye -- or perhaps even helped -- as Taliban and al-Qaeda members fled into Pakistan during the U.S invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11, according to U.S. officials.
Washington also believes the agency protected Abdul Qadeer Khan, lionized as the "father" of Pakistan's bomb, who was arrested in 2004 for selling nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
And when Kashmiri militants attacked the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008, killing 166 people, New Delhi accused the ISI of controlling and coordinating the strikes. A key militant suspect captured by the Americans later told investigators that ISI officers had helped plan and finance the attack. Pakistan denies any active ISI connection to the Mumbai attacks and often points to the hundreds of troops killed in action against militants as proof of its commitment to fighting terrorism.
But over the past few years Washington has grown increasingly suspicious-and ready to criticize Pakistan. The U.S. military used association with the spy agency as one of the issues they would question Guantanamo Bay prisoners about to see if they had links to militants, according to WikiLeaks documents made available last month to the New York Times.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last July that she believed that Pakistani officials knew where bin Laden was holed up. On a visit to Pakistan just days before the Abbottabad raid, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused the ISI of maintaining links with the Taliban.
As the CIA gathered enough evidence to make the case that bin Laden was in Abbottabad, U.S. intel chiefs decided to keep Pakistan in the dark.
Fury at Friday prayers: Pak, Indonesian Muslims vow to carry on jihad
Anti-American protests and threats of violent revenge rang out today as pro-Osama Bin Laden demonstrations sprang up across the Muslim world.
Following the U.S. special forces operation that captured and killed Bin Laden on Sunday, there has been criticism from religious and political leaders in the UK and Europe, while the UN has also said it wants to investigate the legality of the killing.
But in the Muslim world Bin Laden remains a hero of jihad for many and the strength of feeling was palpable today in Pakistan, the regular Friday prayers were accompanied by widespread anti-American protests.
Religious hardline groups have hit out at what they see as the Pakistani government's softness on the issue because, while it has expressed its anger over America's violation of its sovereignty, it has not condemned the killing itself, which has angered many among its vast population.
Pakistan's leaders now face criticism from all sides.
The U.S. is complaining of either vast ignorance or shameful complicity on the part of the government.
But both Islamists and ordinary Pakistanis are questioning how their leaders can stand by passively after the U.S. sent commandos deep inside the country into a garrison city to eliminate the Al Qaeda chief.
At the same time, suspicions that some Pakistani security forces might have known he was hiding in the country threaten to strain already uneasy ties with Washington.
'The country's political and military leadership should immediately resign as they have failed to ensure the country's integrity,' said Fareed Ahmed Paracha, a senior leader of the biggest Islamist political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, at a rally in the eastern city of Lahore.
'This is an attack on Pakistan's sovereignty.'
About 1,500 Islamists demonstrated near the city of Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province in the southwest, saying more figures like Bin Laden would arise to wage holy war against the United States.
'Jihad (holy war) against America will not stop with the death of Osama,' said cleric Fazal Mohammad Baraich, amid shouts of 'Down with America'.
'Osama Bin Laden is a shaheed (martyr). The blood of Osama will give birth to thousands of other Osamas.'
In Abbottabad, where the U.S. operation took place, dozens of Islamists marched through streets calling on the United States to stay out of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
'America is the world's biggest terrorist,' read one placard.
Small protests were also held in the cities of Multan and Hyderabad.
Anti-American sentiment is running high, despite billions of dollars in U.S. aid for nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Pakistan's religious parties have not traditionally done well at the ballot box, but they wield considerable influence on the streets of a country where Islam is becoming more radicalised.
The U.S. war on militancy is unpopular in Pakistan because of the perception of high civilian deaths from drone attacks against suspected militants along the Afghan border and the feeling they are a violation of the country's sovereignty.
The Pakistani government said Bin Laden's death was a milestone in the fight against militancy although it objected to the raid as a violation of sovereignty.
Pakistan has denied any knowledge of his whereabouts and the army threatened on Thursday to cut intelligence and military cooperation with the United States if it mounted more attacks.
Some Pakistanis are too overwhelmed by the daily grind in a politically and economically unstable nation that offers poor government services and education, to react to the fact that the world's most wanted man was living here for years undetected.
'This is just another instance of us becoming insensitive to all the chaos around us as a nation, and Osama's death is just another day, another incident for us,' said Jibran Jawaid, a film producer in Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi.
'Frankly, when people are so worried about high food prices, no power, security and everything, they cannot be blamed for being insensitive.
'A roti (bread) costs so much, bombs go off every now and then, people are robbed daily, so should they worry about that or the U.S. raid?'
But it is not just Pakistan where the anger has been clear and there were more explict threats of violent revenge in Indonesia, where more than 100 youths donned black executioner style masks and swore vengeance.
The group, calling itself Al Kaida, vowed to avenge Bin Laden's death and said it would focus attacks on the United States.
There was no indication that it had the capacity to do so but as police monitored the rally in the city of Solo, central Java, the strength of feeling was undeniable.
'One hundred youths from Solo are ready to die to take revenge on the death of Osama,' declared Choirul, a cleric in Al Kaida Solo and also a member of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), which has a history of violent attacks.
'His fight will not be ending.'
Several other Indonesian Islamists have hailed Bin Laden as a martyr this week, showing the continued militancy of some Southeast Asian groups, but Al Kaida is predicting a major reprisal attack.
'Osama had lived with a principle of living nobly or dying a martyr,' said Endro Sudarsono, spokesman of the Solo group.
'But the U.S. said he was a terrorist and we objected to this view. Due to this lie we are committed to avenge his death.'
Sudarsono said that the group of men, aged 20-40, were still discussing how to avenge the death, but that Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq were their main destinations.
There were also protests today in Kashmir and Lebanon.
© Daily Mail, London |
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