How could Twitter buff hear copters, but not Pakistan forces?

Ironically, ‘Osama the violent’ was taken out by ‘Obama the pacifist’. The timing suited Obama well. It had long been speculated that Osama would be killed around the time Obama’s re-election campaign kicked off. When he made the announcement of the strike to the world, Obama looked content and confident; he was also carefully gracious to include Pakistan in his acknowledgements. Mysteriously though, Pakistan is shying away from accepting its role in this affair. The question that needs to be asked is this: Is Pakistan actually in the dark? Or, is it putting on an act, pretending for domestic reasons, that the US kept it out of the loop? 

Anything is possible in the murky mix of terror and counter-terrorism, but let us examine the available evidence.

About three weeks before the strike, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Ahmad Shuja General Pasha visited Washington. But just a day into the three-day visit he packed his bags and returned to Islamabad. No explanations were offered, nor were there any loud recriminations which Pakistanis are such experts at otherwise. Perhaps that is when Americans took him into confidence and asked him to ensure Pakistan’s cooperation.

A few days thereafter, Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani said that Pakistan will not tolerate any attack inside its territory. He had said so earlier too but those statements always followed a drone attack. This time he seemed to be anticipating an attack of a different kind. 

Let us turn to the attack now. Abbottabad isn’t far from the Line of Control. It is only 200 miles south of the Afghanistan border and is an easy jeep ride away from Rawalpindi, the headquarters of the Pakistan army. It isn’t too far away from Pakistan’s nuclear installations either. A town like this would lie on the cross-wires of many of Pakistan’s radars. Even if the American helicopters had found a gap in radar coverage, it would at best have been a slight aperture rather than a huge and continuous black hole. 

Moreover weren’t there Pakistani security personnel on the ground along the sensitive route the helicopters took? If they were on duty, how could they fail to hear the loud noise of low-flying helicopters? Let us concede this point too, that perhaps by an amazing coincidence all guards were deaf or sleeping on duty.

Let us now proceed to Abbottabad, home of an army brigade. Some soldiers must have been on duty. Why didn’t they raise an alarm as helicopters passed over them twice? The second time they were returning after gun fire and a blast that destroyed a helicopter. Aren’t military men trained to challenge and investigate?

Maybe they too were taking a day off. But what about the soldiers stationed at the military academy? It has a training battalion of regular soldiers numbering about 700 on its premises. Some of them must have been on night duty. Did they not hear the commotion a stone’s throw away at Osama’s residence?

Perhaps even this lot was indisposed. But what about the personnel posted outside Osama’s house by different security agencies? Despite Pakistan’s protests, it is inconceivable that the king of terror could have stayed in such a house without anyone knowing about it. This claim borders on ridiculous. He stayed there because Pakistan wanted him to stay there under its watchful eyes. Obviously then there must have been a large number of intelligence personnel. Didn’t they notice the helicopters hovering overhead? Or had they conveniently been given the night off?

In contrast, it was easy for an amateur computer buff to report via Twitter to the world that something strange was afoot in Abbottabad. He tweeted live that the whirr of helicopters and the sound of explosions wasn’t an everyday occurrence in the town. Many others he reportedly checked with in the city concurred with him. Yet the Pakistani security saw nothing and heard nothing despite a formidable range of technical and human intelligence at its command.

It just doesn’t add up, especially when the Pakistani foreign secretary later warned of catastrophic consequences in case India tried a similar ‘misadventure’. That is the crux: Pakistan must have willingly turned a blind eye and decided that Osama had served his purpose and that he could now be sacrificed. But in return Pakistan must have extracted a price from the US. We will know what that is and how expensive it may be only over time. But these developments are unlikely to bring any comfort to India.

— A former ambassador, Rajiv Dogra is a novelist, columnist and an artist