HUNT FOR OSAMA BIN-LADEN

 Questions for Pakistan

There have been so many questions for which Pakistani officials do not have answers.

How could Pakistan's air defense system fail to intercept four incoming helicopters? Why did the US not trust Pakistan to help catch Osama Bin Laden? How come Islamabad failed to find a man living in such an obviously suspicious house? Or did the state help hide him? Is Pakistan a failed state? No? Then is it a rogue state?

Pakistanis are used to journalists asking embarrassing questions. But the death of Osama Bin Laden has broken new ground.  The claim of the country's main intelligence agency, the ISI, that it had been unable to find Bin Laden has dented the image of an organization that has hitherto been beyond public criticism.

The Hunt for Osama

Just a handful of US military and senior officials around President Obama knew of the planned raid. However, within seconds of the arrival of the US helicopters overhead in Abbottabad on Monday, May 2, 2011, shortly after 1:00 am Pak.Std.Time. Their presence was being advertised on Twitter. "Helicopter hovering above Abbotttabad at 1am (is a rare event)," tweeted Sohaib Athar, an IT engineer who lives about 3km from the compound. Eleven minutes later Athar reported: "A huge window-shaking bang here in Abbottabad. I hope it's not the start of something nasty."

 Planning for the raid started late last year. US officials have spoken of how an intercept in late August 2010 of a phone call to a trusted courier of Bin Laden in Pakistan was a breakthrough that led to the raid. The call was made to Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, a man the US had been seeking for years as part of the decade long hunt for Bin Laden. US officials had learnt of his identity from interrogations of detainees in Guantanamo. Armed with the mobile phone number, the US was able to track him to the compound in Abbottabad.

 According to neighbours who spoke to the BBC, the occupants rarely went out and when they did so - in either a red Suzuki jeep or van - they passed through security doors that closed immediately afterwards.

US intelligence soon began an intensive period of surveillance. While satellites watched from the sky a CIA safe house was set up nearby. From this safe house, agents were able to observe the comings and goings from the compound in order to establish a "pattern of life" at the building. Some details of how they tried to obtain key information about the building have emerged.

The CIA also employed a sophisticated stealth drone that could float high above the compound without detection by the Pakistani authorities. With its distinctive bat-winged shape, the Sentinel is capable of flying undetected at high altitude taking photographs and sending real-time video. The aircraft can also capture images shot at an angle. This has the advantage of not flying directly over its target.

Despite the presence on the ground and observation from the sky, the CIA was still unable to positively identify Bin Laden as the man often spotted often walking up and down outside the house. Agents dubbed him "the pacer".

 According to a detailed account of the lead-up to the raid in the Washington Post, US officials were "stunned to realise that whenever Kuwaiti or others left to make a call, they drove for 90 minutes before placing" a battery in a mobile phone.

The raid

In the end, after months of investigation, the US had no conclusive proof of Osama’s presence in the compound. Any raid on the building was still a 55/45 situation, President Obama declared.

Nevertheless, 2^nd  May 2011 presented a moonless night on which to mount the raid. The President formally gave the go-ahead on the morning of Friday, Apr.29. Five aircraft flew two teams of Navy Seals from a US base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, into Pakistan.  The two other aircraft, specially adapted Black Hawk helicopters, flew on to Abbottabad. On board, were 23 Seals, a translator and a tracking dog called Cairo. Three of the Seals were specifically tasked to seek out Bin Laden.

After the shooting, one of the soldiers radioed his commanders: "Geronimo EKIA". In the cold military jargon, "EKIA" (Enemy killed in action) signaled that the team had killed their target.

Pakistan was not tipped off in advance about the raid although a Pakistani Intelligence official told the BBC that once US helicopters entered Pakistan air space the US officials told their counterparts that an operation was under way against "a high value target". They were not told the target was Osama Bin Laden. This ultimately led to the jets being called back.

From there Bin Laden's body was flown to the USS Carl Vinson, a US aircraft carrier in the north Arabian Sea, where Bin Laden was prepared for burial. A White House spokesman said the corpse was prepared for burial "in conformance with Islamic precepts and practice", then placed in a weighted bag and dropped into the water from the vessel's deck.

(Source: BBC News, Islamabad, 6 May 2011).