Osama bin Laden report: Pakistan accused of 'gross incompetence'

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Osama bin Laden report: Pakistan accused of 'gross incompetence'

Pakistan's government and military are accused of "gross incompetence" and a string of failures that allowed Osama bin Laden to live undetected in the country for almost a decade, according to an independent inquiry.

The Navy Seal who claims to have fired the bullets that killed Osama bin Laden has described the moment he pulled the trigger.

By Rob Crilly, Pakistan correspondent
5:21PM BST 08 Jul 2013

A leaked copy of the report by the Abbottabad Commission, obtained by Al Jazeera, delivers a scathing verdict on Pakistan inability to detect bin Laden or spot the covert US mission to kill him.

"Culpable negligence and incompetence at almost all levels of government can more or less be conclusively established," it concludes.

He was eventually tracked down by the CIA to a three-storey villa in the town of Abbottabad, barely 30 miles from the capital Islamabad and close to the military's officer training academy.

A team of Navy Seals conducted a covert raid in May 2011 to kill the world's most wanted man.

The raid and the realisation that the al-Qaeda chief had hidden "in plain sight" were deeply embarrassing to Islamabad.

It set up an inquiry to investigate both the raid and how such a notorious figure had avoided detection.

Its 336-page report makes scathing reading.

It details bin Laden's life on the run – as he moved from safe house to sage house he was even able to father four children – and contains witness testimony from his wives describing the night of the raid.

The report confirms earlier reports that bin Laden had arrived in Pakistan by mid-2002 and was based in the Swat Valley before moving to the town of Haripur as he waited for his custom-built house in nearby Abbottabad to be built.

He would don disguises including a "cowboy hat" to avoid being spotted from above.

But the report detailed several occasion on which investigators might have closed the net. It accuses several government bodies of failing properly to investigate the house, which had been built without the proper planning permissions.

"Over a period of time, an effective intelligence agency should have been able to contact, infiltrate or co-opt [OBL's support network], and to develop a whole case load of information. Apparently, this was not the case," it concluded.

It is equally critical of Pakistan's inability to prevent the American raid.

According to Al Jazeera, the report says the presence of a CIA network inside Pakistan tasked with finding Bin Laden, without the Pakistani establishment's knowledge, was "a case of nothing less than a collective and sustained dereliction of duty by the political, military and intelligence leadership of the country".

Such a conclusion will be deeply embarrassing for a military that soaks up huge amounts of funding and foreign aid, and remains on a war footing with India.

 

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Osama bin Laden was stopped for speeding in car while on run in Pakistan report reveals

The hunt for Osama bin Laden might have ended eight years earlier had a Pakistani traffic policeman spotted the world's most wanted man in a car he had stopped for speeding.

Osama bin Laden was stopped when he lived in Pakistan's Swat Valley during 2002 and 2003 Photo: AP

By Rob Crilly
5:54PM BST 08 Jul 2013

The details are unclear, but according to Pakistan's official investigation obtained by Al Jazeera, bin Laden, his family and his two couriers along with their families would make occasional trips to the bazaar when they lived in Pakistan's Swat Valley during 2002 and 2003.

Maryam, the wife of Ibrahim al-Kuwaiti, a trusted Bin Laden guard, in her testimony to the investigation said they were pulled over by a policeman on one occasion.

In her evidence to the inquiry she said her husband "quickly settled the matter" and the head of al-Qaeda was soon on his way again.

Whether the police officer was paid off or he simply failed to spot the notorious passenger is not explained.

At the time, Maryam did not even know who the identity of the tall, clean-shaven man to whom her husband appeared devoted.

Her evidence, in particular, provides a fascinating insight into life on the run, and the huge precautions taken to avoid being found. While the couriers' children were all allowed to venture outside the high-walled compound, bin Laden's own sons and daughters had to stay within.

Her husband and his brother were paid 9000 rupees (£60) a month but on one occasion suggested they had been promised property in Saudi Arabia in return for their duties.

 

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'In that second, I shot him': Navy Seal who killed bin Laden tells of pulling the trigger

A US Navy Seal who claims to have fired the shots that actually killed Osama Bin Laden has described for the first time the moment he shot the al-Qaeda leader twice in the head.

The Navy Seal who claims to have fired the bullets that killed Osama bin Laden has described the moment he pulled the trigger.

By Peter Foster, Washington
3:53PM GMT 11 Feb 2013

However the anonymous shooter also told how his wife and family now live in constant fear for their lives, and have taught their children to hide in the bathtub at the first sign of a reprisal attack.

In an exhaustive 15,000 word interview with Esquire, the unnamed member of Seal Team 6 describes the huge elation — but also the deep personal cost — that came with being the man who fired the fatal shots at the al-Qaeda leader during the raid of May 2, 2011 in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Others have claimed that they, too, shot bin Laden. However the unnamed Seal told Esquire magazine that although another Seal had fired two speculative shots at the terror leader after he was spotted “peeking around a curtain” of the doorway, it was him alone that fired the fatal shots.

After his colleague had fired, the Seal says he was quickly through the third-floor bedroom doorway and saw bin Laden moving across the room clutching one of his wives and advancing towards his trademark “short” AK47 rifle that was on a shelf.

The Seal said bin Laden appeared "confused", and was taller than he expected. The al-Qaeda leader did not appear to be wounded, and was holding one of his wives in front of him - possibly as a shield.

The Seal said he had no doubts that he was face to face with the target. "Even in our kill houses where we train, there are targets with his face on them. This was repetition and muscle memory. That’s him, boom, done.

“I thought in that first instant how skinny he was, how tall and how short his beard was, all at once... I remember all that registering. I was amazed how tall he was, taller than all of us...”

The Seal continued: “In that second, I shot him, two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap! The second time as he’s going down. He crumpled onto the floor in front of his bed and I hit him again, Bap! same place.

The third time, he said, he used his EOTech red-dot holo sight. "He was dead. Not moving. His tongue was out. I watched him take his last breaths, just a reflex breath.”

The entire episode was over in 15 seconds, he said.

After the shooting, the Seal admitted feeling “stunned” but was jolted back to reality with an order to get down to the other rooms and help other Seals clear out computers and intelligence materials — whereupon he discovering some strange-looking packages.

“At first I thought they were filled with vacuum-sealed rib-eye steaks... Then, wait a minute. This is raw opium... It was pretty funny to see that,” he said.

In training the Seal said that most of his team had presumed that they would die on the mission, writing tearful farewell letters to their children and wives.

The Seal also bought a $350 pair of Prada sunglasses so he could “die with some style on”.

On returning, the soldier handed the magazine from this rifle — minus three bullets — as a souvenir to the female CIA officer (the character played by Jessica Chastain in the film of the raid Zero Dark Thirty) who had been responsible for tracking down bin Laden.

The Seal also gives an account of watching the Kathryn Bigelow film and laughing at the unrealistic amount of talking the Seals did during the raid.

He also corrected the story that the raid was delayed by 24 hours because of the weather, when in fact it was because the raid was originally scheduled for the night annual White House Correspondent’s dinner and it was realised that it would look suspicious if many officials had to suddenly leave.

Had the mission gone wrong, the Seal says the original plan was for Vice-President Biden fly to Islamabad and negotiate their release with Pakistan, but that Barack Obama rejected the plan in favour of a military response.

“This is hearsay, but I understand Obama said, ‘Hell no’,” the Seal said. “My guys are not surrendering. What do we need to rain hell on the Pakistani military?”

The interview by Phil Bronstein, the long-time war reporter and former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, also highlights the psychological price paid by elite special forces and the surprising lack of support they and their families receive after leaving the force.

After the raid, as TV news crews filmed the houses where many Seals lived, the “Shooter” said that he was offered a place in a witness protection programme - driving a beer truck in Milwaukee.

He decided against the offer because “like Mafia snitches” he would lose contact with all his friends and family.

Instead the Seal’s wife — who is separated from her husband, although they continue to share a house for financial reasons - said she has learned to live with the fact that “my family is always going to be at risk”.

The Seal concerned gave the interview only after leaving the service after 16 years, without a pension or healthcare benefits, and depriving his wife of the support network that had helped her cope with life married to a member of the Special Forces.

If something were to happen, the Shooter has instructed her to take the kids to the base gate anyway and demand to see the commanding officer, or someone from the Seal team. “He said someone will come get us,” she said, forlornly.

 

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EXCLUSIVE: The raid that killed Bin Laden

Published on Jul 8, 2013

The Abbottabad Commission was charged with ascertaining the facts of what happened on the night of May 1, 2011, when the United States unilaterally launched a raid to capture or kill al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in northern Pakistan.

While all previous accounts released to the public have been the stories of SEAL team members, or sourced mainly through Washington's squad of analysts from the CIA and similar agencies, the Commission pieced together testimony from local and provincial officials, police and security personnel - and, indeed, captured members of Bin Laden's family themselves - to tell the story of that warm May night through the eyes of those who found themselves in the targeting crosshairs.
This is that account.

Al Jazeera's Clayton Swisher reports.