The tale of Osama’s trail

For years it was suspected that an acute renal disease could have killed Osama bin Laden. That did not happen and the al Qaeda chief was finally taken out in a US Navy SEALs operation, but the kidney problem might have become an indirect reason for his death on Monday in Abbottabad.
“Osama would never spend more than 20 days in one place and the same was the case with his abode in Abbottabad where he would come and go, the details now slowly surfacing show,” said a senior security official here requesting anonymity. “This time, most likely he spent more than 20 days, perhaps over a month or even two because of his kidney problem and that’s why he was taken out by those who were on his trail,” he said.
He also revealed that this was not the first operation by the SEALs on Pakistani soil. “In 2006, these special US forces landed in Damadola, Bajaur Agency, to capture or kill Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s deputy chief, but that intelligence proved to be shaky leading to a long inquiry in the United States to figure out why such an important operation was ordered based on faulty intelligence,” he claimed.
Talking about the Abbottabad operation, in a background interview, an intelligence official here said: “Intelligence operatives had their suspicions about this compound in Abbottabad but it was not the only one and there were hundreds of other such locations where we would think bin Laden or any other al Qaeda leader could be hiding,” he said. “We shared our intelligence about the compound with the Americans but it was they who got him, exploiting fully that information to their advantage with their advanced technology playing a key role,” he said.
However, Osama did manage to evade them for 10 years despite all their technology, he said. He said Osama was last spotted for sure in Nangarhar in November 2001, and after that Pakistani intelligence received reports that could not be verified about his presence in South Waziristan in 2002. “In 2004, there were reports that bin Laden was spotted in Kunar province of Afghanistan, in 2005 it was again Kunar and then there were also reports about Chitral and even Mansehra. But as I said earlier, he was constantly on the move and that’s how he was able to keep himself safe,” the official said.
“Moreover, contrary to general belief that Osama would move with 20 or 25 diehard bodyguards, he would do that with 2 or 3 people, the most trusted ones in his eyes. He would also use very ordinary vehicles like Suzuki Potohar jeep. Once we received a credible report about that, though not showing his hiding place,” he said. “Osama always trusted few people, like the courier from Kuwait who took CIA to bin Laden’s doorstep,” he said, adding that bin Laden would never use modern gadgets and would also keep others in his company from using the Internet and telephones.
To a question about what could have brought Osama to the garrison city of Abbottabad, he said urban centres, the militants believed, had been safer abodes for al Qaeda militants. “Don’t forget Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, who was arrested in Westridge, Rawalpindi, only few kilometres from the GHQ (General Headquarters),” he said. Moreover, he said, the army was operating everywhere in the tribal areas and as for Afghanistan, there was a military surge in recent months and before that North Atlantic Treaty Organisation forces had access to every region.
“All these things could have forced bin Laden to opt for a city like Abbottabad,” the official said