Pakistan was alleged to have provided support for Osama bin Laden. These claims have been made both before and after Osama was found living in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan and was killed by a team of United States Navy SEALs on 2 May 2011. The compound itself was located just half a mile from Pakistan's premier military training academy Kakul Military Academy (PMA) in Abbottabad.[1] In the aftermath of bin Laden's death, American president Barack Obama asked Pakistan to investigate the network that sustained bin Laden.[2] "We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan", Obama said in a 60 Minutes interview with CBS News. He also added that the United States was not sure "who or what that support network was."[2][3] In addition to this, in an interview with Time magazine, CIA Director Leon Panetta stated that US-officials did not alert Pakistani counterparts to the raid because they feared the terrorist leader would be warned. However, the documents recovered from bin Laden's compound 'contained nothing to support the idea that bin Laden was protected or supported by the Pakistani officials'. Instead, the documents contained criticism of Pakistani military and future plans for attack against the Pakistani military installations.[4]
Based on an investigative report by the New York Times, Pakistan's intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence, was aware of bin Laden's whereabouts and chose not to share this information with the United States.[5] According to Fred Burton, vice-president of the global intelligence firm Stratfor, officials of ISI, Pakistani military, along with one retired Pakistani military general, had knowledge of the arrangements made for bin Laden and the safe house. Bin Laden's compound was razed that day at his Abbottabad safe house.[6]
David Ignatius in The Washington Post referred to the claim of the former ISI chief General Ziauddin Butt that the Abbottabad compound was used by the Intelligence Bureau and noted that a report in the Pakistani press in December had quoted him as saying that Osama's stay at Abbottabad was arranged by Brigadier (retired) Ijaz Shah, senior ISI officer and the head of the Intelligence Bureau during 2004–2008, on Pervez Musharraf's orders.[7] Later Butt denied making any such statement.[8][9]
The allegations have led to tension between the two countries and raised questions about Pakistan's role in the war on terror.[5]
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was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Yet the thousands of pages of documents recovered from bin Laden's compound contain nothing to back up the idea that bin Laden was protected by Pakistani officials or that he was in communication with them.
Rnews
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).