Bin Laden report shows why terrorists thrive in Pak, India

New Delhi, July 10: The Abbottabad Commission Report on Osama Bin Laden tells the world why terrorists thrive in Third World countries like Pakistan and India.

It gives numerous instance of collusion, ignorance and plain apathy of people and administration which helped Osama and his henchmen to move freely in Pakistan and build a mansion right next to a defence establishment. Some of the instance are chillingly familiar to casual Indians.

Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden was killed in a raid on his Abbottabad hideout on the night of May 1-2, 2011, by a team of US Navy SEALs from the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group with CIA support. And the president of Pakistan came to know of the raid an hour after it ended.

It all began in 2001 with Osama's family moving to Karachi and the Pakistani intelligence did not have clue or just ignored.

His trusted man Abu Ahmed Ali Kuwaiti was with the family and the information about him (Kuwaiti) was given to Pakistani intelligence in 2002 by a arrested Al Qaeda member. But nothing moved.

In 2002, Osama Bin Laden joined his family in Peshawar and he felt safe as nobody bothered him except when a person who visited him was later held in Rawalpindi. This prompted the family to move to Haripur, a town close to Islamabad. They stayed in this town for three years without raising any suspicion of public or the authorities.

Fake I-cards accepted

The land in Abbottabad was purchased using a fake identity card. For registration of the property a computerised I-card is required in Pakistan but a manually produced fake card was accepted by the officials and no objections were raised during the transaction.

Neither the identities nor the addresses were verified by the revenue department and the Cantonment Board of Abbottabad. These sort of things are common in India too.

Osama's new residence in Abbotabad had three floors. His youngest wife stayed on the second floor while the older wives - Sharifa and Khaira - stayed on the lower floor.

Building violation unchecked

The third floor was built in violation of the building plan. But no authority came to check it.

The occupants also remained unchecked even after non-payment of property tax for years.

The report noted that Osama Bin Laden's compound had four electric meters, presumably to "ensure that none would indicate any excessive consumption of gas and electricity." Local officials "should have immediately noticed the ruse," the report said.

Not only was Osama Bin Laden able to hide undetected in his compound, but "to crown it all, the house was enumerated in a house survey with the comment that it was ‘be-chiragh' i.e. uninhabited!"

"Since August 2005, there were never less than 25 people living in it! The extent of incompetence, to put it mildly, was astounding, if not unbelievable," the report says.

Of the more than nine years that the Qaeda leader was on the run, he was a resident of Abbottabad for six.

The Commission adds: "It is clear that someone from the civil administration, police security and intelligence services should have noticed, but did not notice, anything odd about the compound over so many years."

Intelligence agencies at fault

The 336-page classified report, which was revealed by Al Jazeera on its website, was a scathing criticism of the performance of the intelligence agencies. The report observed that the most well-resourced ISI acted unprofessionally, lacked commitment to fight extremism and terror and obstructed the performance of other spy outfits.

The agency neither tried to locate the addresses where the Al Qaeda chief and his family members lived before arriving in Abbottabad, nor did it probe the leads given by those interrogated.

"It just prevented other authorised agencies from doing possibly a better job despite their relative lack of resources," the commission maintained.

It said that while the civilian agencies were incompetent and lacked initiative, the powerful non-civilian outfits denied them space and resources.

Biggest humiliation after India war

The Pakistani military's inability to prevent the U.S. incursion into its airspace was the country's greatest "humiliation" since 1971, when Indian forces routed Pakistan in a war that led to the creation of modern-day Bangladesh, the report stated. Despite signals from Washington that American forces would enter Pakistan if they thought they could capture bin Laden, Pakistani's air defenses were set to a "peace time mode" when the US helicopters crossed into Pakistani airspace, the report said.

OneIndia News
(With agencies inputs)