IRIA News

Pakistani officials not only knew about Osama bin Laden’s location, they also kept him as a prisoner, according to a new expose by the US investigative journalist, Seymour M. Hersh

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Seymour Hersh, the White House version of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden was false, and in fact it was a joint operation between the US and Pakistani military intelligence.

“The White House’s story might have been written by Lewis Carroll,” Seymour Hersh wrote of the official version, which says the U.S. tracked the Al-Qaida leader to a compound in Pakistan by following his couriers, and took him out with a secret commando raid.

Veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh’s 10,356-word article in the London Review of Books said the top officers of Pakistan’s military and spy agency were aware of the raid in advance, citing a retired senior Pakistani intelligence official and corroborating U.S. sources.

Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh claims the raid that killed Osama bin Laden was a joint operation between the US and Pakistani military intelligence.

The American journalist has claimed that Osama bin Laden was a prisoner of Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006, and that a Pakistani intelligence officer gave him up to the US in return for a $25 million reward.

The allegation has many in the US – and Pakistan – crying foul, and pointing to what they see as insufficient attribution and questionable conclusions throughout Hersh’s lengthy piece.

“The notion that the operation that killed Osama bin Laden was anything but a unilateral US mission is patently false,” said White House spokesperson Ned Price, adding that the piece was riddled with “inaccuracies and baseless assertions”.

At the heart of Hersh’s article is the allegation that, starting in 2006, Bin Laden was under Pakistani control, kept in Abbottabad with the financial assistance of Saudi Arabia.

Official account

Observers say that Bin Laden, who was wanted by the US for his role in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, had lived in Afghanistan for five years following the US invasion of the country and the subsequent toppling of the Taliban government. In 2006, Pakistani military intelligence, the ISI“got to him by paying some of the local tribal people to betray him,” according to the famed US journalist.

The official US version of bin Laden’s death says the American intelligence agencies tracked the al Qaeda’s leader’s compound in Abbottabad by following his couriers. Islamabad doesn’t challege that account.

The report said bin Laden was actually in Pakistan’s custody in the Abbottabad compound since 2006, and one source said his health had failed to the point of making him an invalid.

Hersh, the award winning journalist who gained international recogntition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, says the official account of the secretive bin Laden raid is hard to believe.

“The White House’ story might have been written by Lewis Carroll,” Hersh wrote in his exposé:

“… the CIA did not learn of bin Laden’s whereabouts by tracking his couriers, as the White House has claimed since May 2011, but from a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer who betrayed the secret in return for much of the $25 million reward offered by the US,” he said.

Hersh added that although it was true that US President Barack Obama “did order the raid and the Seal team did carry it out, many other aspects of the administration’s account were false.”

“The most blatant lie was that Pakistan’s two most senior military leaders – General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, (former) chief of the army staff, and General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, (former) director general of the ISI (Pakistani military’s spy agency) – were never informed of the US mission. This remains the White House position despite an array of reports that have raised questions,” Hersh said.

Bin Laden — ‘the prisoner’

In his article, Hersh went on to highlight “new pieces of information” about the Abbottabad operation:

“Bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006 … Kayani and Pasha knew of the raid in advance and had made sure that the two helicopters delivering the Seals to Abbottabad could cross Pakistani airspace without triggering any alarms …”

Osama bin Laden

“Many observers agree that there was a level of cooperation between Washington and Islamabad on the bin Laden raid, but Hersh’s claims take the matter to another level,” Amjad Sharif, a Pakistani journalist said talking to DW. “It is the first time anyone has said that the Pakistani military was keeping bin Laden as a prisoner all the way along,” he added.

It is true that on May 2, 2011, the Pakistani air force and military radar did not raise any alarm, or attempted to intercept the two US helicopters carrying the Special Forces team when they crossed into the Pakistani territory from Afghanistan.

Hersh said that President Obama, who ordered the Abottabad raid, was not sure whether the US forces could carry out the operation without Pakistan’s help.

“The only way to accomplish both things, the retired official said, ‘was to get the Pakistanis on board,'” Hersh wrote. “The compound was not an armed enclave — no machine guns around because it was under ISI control,” he continued.

White House denies Report that Pakistan helped in Bin Laden hit

The White House on Monday dismissed as “baseless” new allegations that the Obama administration lied about the 2011 military raid in Pakistan that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

In a statement, the White House specifically rejected Mr. Hersh’s contention that Pakistan knew about the raid before it happened.

“The notion that the operation that killed Osama Bin Ladin was anything but a unilateral U.S. mission is patently false,” said Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council. “As we said at the time, knowledge of this operation was confined to a very small circle of senior U.S. officials.”

He added: “The president decided early on not to inform any other government, including the Pakistani Government, which was not notified until after the raid had occurred. This was a U.S. operation through and through.”