Details of ‘the hunt for Osama’ revealed!

The Abbottabad Commission Report, which is yet to be made public, contains a treasure trove of information on the hunt for the world’s most wanted man – Osama Bin Laden (OBL).

One of the primary revelations made by this report is that the major breakthrough in the hunt for OBL came with the arrest of Khalid Bin Attash (an Al Qaeda member who was involved in the pre-9/11 attacks such as on USS Cole and the embassies in Africa) in ‘2002’ from Karachi. Khalid was responsible for identifying Abu Ahmed Ali Kuwaiti (the Kuwaiti born Pakistani who was OBL’s right hand man and courier and the man who led the Americans to Bin Laden.

The Kuwaiti intelligence service could not provide any details about the man. Nevertheless, CIA shared four phone numbers between “2009 to Nov 2010” but without Pakistan without any details, a source privy to the report’s details has told local media.

Local media has learnt that these numbers “most of the time remained off” but while the ISI kept the CIA in the loop it did so “without knowing the context and to whom these numbers belonged”. Now in retrospect, the commission report confirms Attash’s disclosure – Kuwaiti was OBL’s right hand man.

According to what the commission has discovered, he was with OBL’s family in Karachi when it moved to the port city in Oct/Nov 2001. In 2002, when the family (including OBL’s wives) moved to Peshawar, Kuwaiti was with them and this is where OBL joined them – in mid-2002. From here they moved to Swat where OBL was visited by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. A month later, KSM was arrested in Rawalpindi, prompting the scared OBL family to move to Haripur.

Kuwaiti and his brother Ibrar (who had joined the fugitives in Swat) were with OBL and they all stayed in Haripur till 2005. And it is here that the move to Abbottabad was planned and executed by Kuwaiti. He is the one who purchased a plot in Abbottabad by using a fake identity card and also supervised the construction of the house, which says a source was custom built.

It contained three complexes. “One open compound, an annexe where Kuwaiti and his family lived and the main three storey house,” said the source, adding that the two top storeys were used by OBL and his family. The youngest wife stayed on the second floor while the older wives – Sharifa and Khaira – stayed on the lower floor. Ibrar and his wife lived on the ground floor. The source explained that the house was built so that the children of Ibrar could not see OBL.

The commission has been told that OBL never had a phone line, an internet or cable connection either in Swat, Haripur or Abbottabad though a dish was used to watch Al Jazeera in more than one city that the families stayed in.

Local media has learnt that the commission has pointed out the violations committed by the residents of the Abbottabad House which remained unchecked by the authorities at the local level. For instance, it has noted that a manual ID card was used to purchase land even though a computerised CNIC had been made mandatory in 2004 by NADRA – “the manual NIC was accepted by the Revenue Department, Cantonment Board and others,” said the source, adding that the identities and the addresses were never verified. He also said that the third floor was built in violation of the building plan and once again no authority intervened.

In addition, the commission has noted that “the fort type construction remained unnoticed by cantonment board, police, intelligence agencies and the locals. The occupants also remained unchecked for non-payment of property tax since 2005”.

Last but not least, reporters have learnt that the commission has given recommendations to the government that are aimed at averting another May 2 like operation.

It was not possible to find out whether or not the report has investigated and/or made any recommendations to prevent fugitives such as OBL from hiding in Pakistan. Neither is it clear whether or not the commission has held anyone responsible for the presence of OBL in the country or the May raid by the Americans.