Islamabad: Most of the details that the White House provided about 2011 Abbottabad raid by US Navy SEALs are “lies” and that America did not act alone in staging Osama raid but was helped by Pakistani military and ISI, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has claimed.
In a new detailed account on May 2011 Osama raid, published in the London Review of Books, US journalist Seymour Hersh has made some explosive revelations about the mission that culminated in the killing of one of the world's most dangerous terrorist Osama bin Laden.
The new account claims that Osama was ISI's prisoner in Abbottabad since 2006 and Pak Army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director general of the ISI both knew of the planned US raid in advance and also made sure that the two helicopters delivering the US Navy Seals to Abbottabad could cross Pakistani airspace without triggering any alarms”
Hersh says his sources include “a retired senior intelligence official who was knowledgeable about the initial intelligence about bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad” and two other US sources, who had access to corroborating information, and were longtime consultants to the Special Operations Command.
In one of the most sensational revelations, Hersh rejects the US claim that it got information on Osama by tracking his couriers.
Hersh writes that the crucial lead about Osama's whereabouts came in the form of a “walk-in” by a former Pakistani intelligence officer, who was ready to divulge Osama's address to the CIA in exchange of USD 25 million bounty on the head of the al Qaeda chief.
Hersh’s report says that this officer was relocated to Washington, DC and now works as a consultant for the CIA.
“It began with a walk-in. In August 2010 a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer approached Jonathan Bank, then the CIA’s station chief at the US embassy in Islamabad. He offered to tell the CIA where to find bin Laden in return for the reward that Washington had offered in 2001,” writes American investigative journalist Seymour M Hersh.
The Pakistani walk-in also informed that bin Laden was very ill, and therefore the ISI had ordered Amir Aziz, a doctor and a major in the Pakistani army, to move nearby to provide treatment to him.
The next task the CIA had to complete was to confirm the information provided by the walk-in. The CIA also needed Obama's support for which they needed a DNA proof that the man at the centre of their plot was the real Osama bin Laden.
Before that, it was very necessary to get Pakistanis on board who (Kayani and Pasha) were otherwise not ready to accept that they knew Osama's whereabouts. However it did not take much for the US to "ease Kayani and Pasha into into it", as Pakistanis depend much upon the US anti-terrorism aid.
‘It didn’t take long to get the co-operation we needed, because the Pakistanis wanted to ensure the continued release of American military aid, a good percentage of which was anti-terrorism funding that finances personal security, such as bullet-proof limousines and security guards and housing for the ISI leadership,’ Hershe quotes his source - the retired official.
He added that there were also under-the-table personal ‘incentives’ that were financed by off-the-books Pentagon contingency funds.
Then started the bargaining process, as US and Pak officials argued about the way that mission would be conducted. Later. the CIA also set up a liaison office at Tarbela Ghazi where an elite Seal team had begun rehearsing for the attack.
In another startling claim, Hersh's account suggests that the US never had a plan, initially, to take the body to sea and "no burial of bin Laden at sea took place".
Hersh's source further says that if the Seals’ first accounts are to be believed, they had torn bin Laden’s body to pieces with rifle fire. "
The remains, including his head, which had only a few bullet holes in it, were thrown into a body bag and, during the helicopter flight back to Jalalabad, some body parts were tossed out over the Hindu Kush mountains – or so the Seals claimed," says the retired official.
Osama was killed by US Navy SEALs in a secret Abbottabad raid on the night of May 2, 2011.
