It wasn't ISI, but CIA that found Osama

The “Shaikh”, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was to spend the fateful night of May 1-2, 2011 with his youngest wife, Amal, on the second floor of a three-storey building they had been living in for five years in Abbottabad in the Khyber Paktunkhwa province of Pakistan. The room, like the rest, was small and cramped. The two retired for the night along with their three-year-old son Hussain who was also sleeping in the same room.

Just after midnight they were woken up by what sounded like a storm. Amal reached to turn on the light but the “Shaikh” said “No!” He went and called for his son Khalid who lived on the first floor with his mother Sharifa. Amal went to check on her other four children. When she came back, the Shaikh’s other two daughters Maryam and Sumaiya had also come up to the second floor. They all started praying. The Shaikh then quietly told them that American helicopters had landed and they should all leave his room. He took out his weapon.

The family then heard a loud blast outside, and heard noises that suggested that some people were on the roof. They also heard people coming up the stairs. Amal saw an American soldier on the landing outside the bedroom aiming his weapon at her husband. She rushed and grappled with the soldier who shouted “No, No’ and shot her in the knee. She fell unconscious and knew little else until the Pakistani soldiers arrived and took them to hospital.

Sumayya, Osama bin Laden’s daughter, also found everything happening too fast for recollection but while she did not see her father shot, she saw him lying on the ground. He had been hit on the forehead and she knew he was dead.
According to her, blood flowed “backwards over his head”.

The American soldiers asked her to identify the body to which she responded with: “my father”. The two sisters were asked to stand in a corner. When they were taken out and looked back, they found the body had gone. According to Maryam, it was less than ten minutes since they had been woken by the sound of helicopters.

The Abbottabad Commission appointed by the Pakistan government to ascertain the full facts regarding the presence of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan; investigate the circumstances and facts regarding the US operation in Abbottabad and determine the nature, background and causes of the lapses of the concerned authorities, has pieced together the events in a detailed and comprehensive report.

The report was “leaked” to Al Jazeera television recently, and since then has created tremendous controversy in Pakistan with the establishment distancing itself from the findings by insisting that this was not the final report that would emerge as the final consensus between at least three such reports prepared by the other members. The Commission was headed by the senior-most judge of the Pakistan Supreme Court Justice Javed Alam, retired inspector general of police Abbas Mohammad Khan, retired ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi who was also a high commissioner to India,  and retired Lt General Nadeem Ahmed.

The US special forces used Jalalabad in Afghanistan as their forward operating base to launch Operation Neptune Spear. They used four helicopters, that included two stealth Black Hawks in the lead, followed by two Chinooks. About 24 US SEALS were involved in the operation, according to the Commission. The raiding force also had Pashtun and Urdu speaking persons along with night vision devices and weapons fitted with silencers. The helicopters entered Pakistan’s airspace between approximately 2315 and 2330 hours.

Three of the four helicopters proceeded to Abbottabad for the raid operation, while a Chinook landed and stayed in Kander Hassanzai, Kala Dhaka, to refuel the other machines on their return. The helicopters reached Abbottabad around 0030 hours. The raid commenced at approximately 0032 hours with one stealth helicopter making the well-known force landing, and other dropping Navy SEALS on the western side of the house. The operation was over within 38 minutes with a total of 30 bullets being fired.

The US soldiers entered the annexe first where the two al Qaeda brothers, Ibrahim and Abrar, lived with their families. They woke up to a loud noise. Ibrahim got a call on his cell phone but no one spoke. They heard a knock on the door and as soon as he opened it, he was shot dead. His wife felt a bullet graze her and another hit her on the shoulder. The Americans forcibly carried out a body search on her but she and her children survived. Abrar was killed on the ground floor of the main house with his wife Bushra. His children survived. The wives, children and grandchildren of Osama bin Laden survived. He and his son Khalid were killed.

Osama bin Laden came to his door and was shot at by the US soldiers. He was armed. Accounts, however, differ as to whether he was shot at the door or when the US troops barged into his room. The SEALS destroyed the helicopter that had crashed in the compound, took the body of OBL, boarded and left, stopping for ten minutes at Kander Hassanzai for refueling. They were all out of Pakistan’s airspace at 0226 hours.

This is the broad conclusion reached by the Commission that took particular interest in the house, and how the families could stay within Abbottabad cantonment for six years undetected. The two brothers Ibrahim and Abrar bought the land in the cantonment area and built the house that according to the Commission violated all building laws. A third storey was added, the walls were raised to unprecedented heights, and although a large number of officials from the civil administration, the police, the intelligence and the army were questioned as to why this did not attract attention, there were no satisfactory answers.

It is clear from the testimonies recorded by the Commission that Osama bin Laden had been moving through Pakistan for at least nine years, the last six being at Abbottabad. Ibrahim’s wife Maryam first met Amal with her youngest child in Karachi in late 2001-2002 but reportedly had no idea who she was. They all travelled together to Peshawar and from there to Swat. Here they were joined by three other persons, one a driver, another dressed in a police uniform and the third, a very tall, clean-shaven man.

They stayed in Swat in a beautiful house with the small town just an hour from their residence. They all lived here for about eight months during which time Amal became pregnant. It was then that Maryam reportedly realized that Amal was the clean-shaven man’s wife. Once when they were all on a visit to the bazaar, they were stopped for speeding by a policeman. Osama bin Laden was in the car but the matter was settled and they drove on.

No one ever visited them in Swat except once when a man called “Hafeez” stayed with them with his wife and seven children for two weeks. He was Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, arrested shortly after. Three days after this, the men left Swat. Ibrahim came back and travelled with the women and children, including Amal, to Peshawar. From here, Amal separated from them here.

After a few days Maryam and Bushra joined their husbands at Haripur where Amal was also present. So was Osama bin Laden’s other wife Sharifa, her son Khalid and their daughters. “The tall Arab was also there”. They all lived in a large house with two hallways, three bedrooms for two long years during which time Amal gave birth to two children. She went to a private clinic for delivery and was taken there by the other women who told the doctors that she was deaf and dumb.

In 2005, they all moved to Abbottabad. Maryam’s daughter was curious as to why Osama bin Laden never went out and was told that he was too poor to buy anything. She nicknamed him “Miskeen Kaka” (poor uncle).The women were discouraged from asking questions. Initially, the women had access to television along with the men in Haripur. One day, however, the little girl saw Miskeen Kaka’s face on television and recognized him. The agitated men stopped the families from watching television from that day. The children did not go to school, Maryam and Bushra went occasionally to the bazaar or to their parents’ homes.

During their six years stay, Maryam never once saw Osama bin Laden. Ibrahim and Abrar’s families stopped visiting the main house and never interacted with Osama bin Laden’s children. At the same time about 27 persons lived in the Abbottabad house for six years in the heart of the military area without being detected. It was not the ISI, if the testimonies are to be believed, but the CIA that finally found them.

(Tomorrow: was Pakistan protecting Osama bin Laden?)

The writer is a senior journalist and author.

Views expressed are personal