The story behind Osama bin Laden’s killing

S P SETH

Not many people, especially among the younger generation, would have heard of the intrepid American reporter, Seymour M. Hersh, who has been breaking stories over the years that has deeply embarrassed the US government of the time. Probably his most important expose was the massacre at the My Lai village in Vietnam in March 1968 of dozens of women, children and old people, “all gunned down”, as Hersh puts it in an article in the New Yorker updating the tragic events, “by young American solders”, a contingent of about a hundred soldiers known as Charlie Company. They “raped women, burned houses, and turned their M-16s on the unarmed civilians of My Lai.” This exposure, however much played down by the US government, created quite a stir and helped mobilize people against the US war in Vietnam.

The reason for bringing it up at this time is that another significant expose by Hersh about the killing of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad throws new light on this event, which would appear to contradict, in important ways, the US official version and accounts that have appeared from Pakistan. According to Hersh, the entire drama, if one might call it that, was a stitch up of sorts involving the US authorities and the highest echelons of the Pakistani military hierarchy. In a recent article in the London Review of Books titled, The killing of Osama bin Laden, Hersh contradicts the Obama administration’s account of what actually happened four years ago. He says, “The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan’s army and Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) were not told of the raid in advance.” And he adds, “This is false, as are many other elements of the Obama administration’s account.”

Based on his own contacts and sources within the US, Hersh has come to conclusion that, “[Osama] bin Laden had been a prisoner of the ISI at the Abbottabad compound since 2006; that Kayani and Pasha [ISI boss at the time] knew of the raid in advance and made sure that the two helicopters delivering the Seals [the assault team] to Abbottabad could cross Pakistani airspace without triggering any alarms; that 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…” The said Pakistani informant and his family were, according to this account, smuggled out of Pakistan and relocated in the Washington area and he is now a consultant for the CIA.

But before the US operations to raid the bin Laden compound to kill him, and during much of the 2010, the US had not let Generals Kiyani and Pasha to know that the Americans had prior knowledge, through the Pakistani informant, that bin Laden was living in Abbottabad as a captive of the army. This was, however, no obstacle to “get the cooperation we [the US] needed [to launch the assault], because the Pakistanis wanted to ensure the continued release of American military aid” as well as “under-the table personal ‘incentives’…” The upshot of it all was that Pakistani military at its highest levels was now part of the planned US operations, agreeing to permit a four-man American cell comprising a Navy Seal, a CIA case officer and two communications specialists, to set up a liaison office at Tarbela Ghazi, an important ISI base for covert operations not far from Abbottabad.

And why did Pakistan army try to keep bin Laden’s captivity a secret? Because, according to Hersh’s source, Pasha told the Americans that, ‘ISI was using bin Laden as leverage against Taliban and al-Qaida activities inside Afghanistan and Pakistan…” In other words, Generals Kayani and Pasha viewed bin Laden as a ‘resource’ both against the al-Qaida and Taliban, as well as to get the US military aid and personal benefits. And when the ISI became part of the US operations, an ISI liaison officer was flying with the Seals guiding them into the darkened house and up a staircase to bin Laden’s quarters. ‘They knew [the ISI] where the target [bin Laden] was—third floor, second door on the right’, according to the retired US official.  And, ‘Osama was cowering and retreated into the bedroom. Two shooters followed him and opened up. Very simple, very straightforward, very professional hit.” In other words, Pasha and Kayani had delivered their side of the bargain.

From here, things went a bit awry as Obama wanted to take credit for a job well done by the US assault team. The agreement with the Pakistani side was that the US would announce bin Laden’s killing in a drone attack in the mountains. But the political temptation for Obama was too great to follow the agreed plan. And to further embellish the account, it was said that the US intelligence tracked bin Laden to his compound through a network of his couriers. According to this account, bin Laden and the two couriers were killed in the ensuing firefight during the American raid. Later, as the story was developed and refined, the number killed went up to five to include bin Laden, his brother, a bin Laden son, a courier, and one of the women said to be shielding bin Laden. There were minor variations here and there in the days to come. Pakistan didn’t like the way the story of bin Laden’s death was played to the media and the outside world by not following the mutually agreed version that he was killed in a drone strike in the mountains. Which led to a ‘four-year lapse in cooperation’ between the Pakistani intelligence and the US agencies, only now resumed. But the relationship is likely to be marred with distrust.

This broadly is the account that Seymour Hersh has put together based on his sources in the US and Pakistani agencies and other corraborative material. It is not suggested that everything that Hersh has pieced together fits in but his  credentials, dating back from his expose of the My Lai massacre, endow it with credibility.

Note: This article was first published in the Daily Times.

Contact: sushlpseth@yahoo.com.au