A year after the raid

No questions answered yet

Osama bin Laden’s first death anniversary, after he was killed at the hands of the elite US Navy seals a year ago at his safe house in the garrison town of Abbottabad, has been celebrated with much fanfare by the US President Barack Obama. The imperial president abroad but beleaguered at home in an election year paid a surprise visit to Kabul on the anniversary where he signed a security pact with Karzai amid a lot of fanfare.

In Pakistan, however, despite a lapse of one year, questions that were unanswered in the immediate aftermath of Osama’s assassination still remain an enigma. Pakistanis, like the rest of the world, were shocked to learn on May 2 a year ago that the most wanted fugitive globally, since his escape from Tora Bora almost a decade ago, was living in Pakistan comfortably amongst them.

The Pakistani military and its premier intelligence agency the ISI had no prior knowledge of the fly-by-night operation. Their prime ally in the war against terror, the US, made a strategic decision to not take them on board lest their mentors in the ISI tipped off bin Laden.

The clandestine manner of the taking out of the Al-Qaeda supremo was symptomatic of the complete breakdown of trust between Washington and Islamabad. One year down the line, the trust deficit has exponentially increased.

It started with the arrest of CIA contractor Raymond Davis in January 2011, was exacerbated by the assassination of Osama bin Laden on May 2 and reached its high point after the US troops killed 24 Pakistani troops in a skirmish at Salala on the Afghan border in November the same year. Not only NATO supplies through Pakistan were halted as a result, there has been a complete breakdown of relations between the CIA and the ISI.

In a sense, the Abbottabad incident was a watershed. As later events would prove, Pakistan’s relations with the US were damaged beyond repair.

Recent attempts to repair frayed relations between Washington and Islamabad have come to naught. Pakistan perhaps over estimating its strategic importance for the US played hard-to-get post Salala. It asked for an apology from Washington, which initially it was willing to offer, but it later on reneged.

Our policy makers are in a quandary about how to bring relations back on track without losing face with their own people. Despite Islamabad’s protestations, the White House on the anniversary of Osama’s death announced that drone attacks in Pakistan would continue. With the absence of an apology, NATO supplies through Pakistan remain suspended.

The ISI had a lot of egg on its face in the post-Abbottabad scenario. It was claimed that the spy agency was oblivious of Osama living in a purpose-built compound a stone’s throw away from Kakul Military Academy, the Pakistani version of West Point.

If it actually had no knowledge of bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan, it was an intelligence lapse of Herculean proportions. It has been acknowledged even by the US that the Pakistani security apparatus was not aware of Osama’s long presence in the country. If, however, the ISI had known all along about the presence of bin Laden in Pakistan along with his three wives and eight children and a grand child in tow, it is open to the charge of duplicity and complicity.

Well-known American journalist Peter Bergen who has extensively written on the OBL raid in his latest book Manhunt: The Ten Year Search for Bin Laden – from 9/11 to Abbottabad, has only confirmed what most Pakistanis already know. Quoting the then head of US National Counter Terrorism Center Michael Lieter, the author reveals, “We were just amazed by the lack of a Pakistani response (on the night of the raid). It was even by Pakistani standards remarkably slow.” Bergen also details Kayani’s surprise at the raid and Zardari’s emotional reaction welcoming it.

Bin Laden being safely ensconced in Abbottabad for years and the subsequent raid there are widely perceived to be unforgiveable intelligence lapses. That is why The ISI Chief General Shuja Pasha was made o leave. He was a person which the COAS General Kayani immensely trusted and he expected an extension in his tenure for another year. At the end of his third term last month, however, he was eased out. His controversial role in Pakistan’s politics and geopolitics nonetheless remains an enigma.

It is common knowledge that Pasha flew to London last October to quiz Mansoor Ijaz, a controversial figure, about the Memogate affair after consulting Kayani. Pasha’s clandestine meeting with the maverick American of Pakistani origin took place without the knowledge of the civilian government.

In the aftermath of Memogate, Pakistan’s ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani was forced to resign for allegedly writing a memo requesting US intervention to save Zardari from the wrath of the army. Haqqani is not willing to return to Pakistan to depose before the commission on health grounds as well as security concerns. However, in recent interviews, he has demanded a probe into the security lapse about the whereabouts of bin Laden in Pakistan for almost a decade.

It is obvious that, as a result of the US raid on Abbottabad, not only did Pakistan’s relations with the US take a nosedive but the military’s relations with the democratically elected government became extremely strained as well. In the past, a coup would have taken place for much less!

Merely razing to the ground the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived for years ostensibly as a family man will not erase from the collective memory of the Pakistani nation another unsavory chapter of numerous acts of omission and commission of its military establishment.

The judicial commission appointed by the Supreme Court to probe the Abbottabad incident is yet to wrap up its work. Few in Pakistan believe that the commission will be able to apportion blame for the raid. Nor it is expected to find a smoking gun leading to the president.

The writer is Editor, Pakistan Today