The US air strike was carried out on the basis of information provided by Inter-Services Intelligence sleuths on payrolls of the Central Intelligence Agency.
LAHORE: The American air strike in the Federally Administered Tribal areas of Pakistan on January 13 was carried out on the basis of information provided by Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) sleuths who are on the payrolls of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
According to well-placed intelligence sources in Islamabad who are working with US agents based in Pakistan, the air strikes targeting Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s right hand man Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri, would not have taken place without the involvement of Pakistani informers. They conceded that the planning and execution of the attack which killed 18 people was the combined effort of CIA officers and their ISI informers, assisting them in their individual capacities. “The attack could not have been possible without some precise information that the right target was at that location, though Zawahiri got out of the building much before it was hit”, the sources said.
An ISI official explained that the ISI is supposed to provide intelligence information to the US sleuths stationed in Pakistan, but the American agents no longer trust its operatives. So they have hired serving and former intelligence officials to work undercover for them in tribal areas. These agents have their own network of local informers.
The CIA had received reports from local informers that the Egyptian surgeon had made regular visits to the Bajaur Agency in the last year and was trying to track his movements. Zawahiri possibly visited the remote Bajaur village to meet his family members and in-laws. The source said that Zawahiri is married to a woman from the Mohmand tribe who lives with her father and her children in the border area between Bajaur Agency and Mohmand tribal regions.
The information that led to the January 13 strikes had come from a local informer working for an ISI official. The Americans were told that a grand meeting was going to take place across the border in the Damadola village of the Bajaur Agency between fugitive Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders.
The CIA flew three Predator drones over the area a few days before the meeting to take intelligence videos and mark the target’s location. The movement tipped Zawahiri off and he fled. The local informers have confirmed that Zawahiri survived.
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