ISI denies it knew about Osama’s presence in Pak

Tariq Butt

A top retired security official says the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had no information about the presence of Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, and what Prime Minister Imran Khan recently said in a TV interview in Washington DC was apparently concerning spy outfit’s input which had helped Ameircan CIA reach a close associate of Osama.

The former official said that Pakistan’s position remains unchanged i.e. ISI had no knowledge of Osama’s presence in Pakistan, said a report.

Prime Minister Imran Khan had said that the “ISI provided a lead” to the CIA that helped the US track down and kill the terror group Al Qaeda’s chief in 2011. Khan’s statement caused a controversy and many politicians criticised Khan for making this claim.

It is said that the prime minister’s statement that the “ISI provided a lead” is possibly a reference to the already known fact that Pakistan had shared details of a mobile number that was used by a close associate of Osama — Abu Ahmed Ali Kuwaiti.

Even leaked parts of Abbottabad Commission report had revealed that 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 led to the first major breakthrough – he was the one who identified Abu Ahmed Ali Kuwaiti (the Kuwaiti born Pakistani who was Osama’s right hand man and courier and the man who led the Americans to Bin Laden).

The report had disclosed that during the search for this man (Kuwaiti), CIA had provided four phone numbers between “2009 to Nov 2010” to Pakistan but without any details as to who they were searching for. 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 Osama’s right hand man,” the report read.

For the same reason, former CIA Director General David Petraeus said a few days back that he is “convinced” that the Pakistani intelligence agencies did not know Osama was in Pakistan.

“We are quite convinced that the ISI, Pakistani intelligence, no one else knew that Osama was there in Pakistan. They were not harbouring him or hiding him or anything like that. We have very good insights on that. We probably differ with those who said that the Pakistanis were allowing him to live in that particular compound in Abbottabad,” he said.

In an unrealted development on Sunday, the government has taken possession of a sprawling house belonging to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar at the request of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

A team of the Lahore district government, headed by Assistant Commissioner Zeeshan Nasrullah, took possession of 7-H Hajvery House, Gulberg III.

For his absconding in a corruption reference, NAB seized Dar’s all movable and immovable assets — the Gulberg house; three plots in Al Falah Housing Society, Lahore; six acres of land in Islamabad; a two-kanal plot in Parliamentarians Enclave, Islamabad; a plot in the Senate Cooperative Housing Society, Islamabad; a plot measuring two kanals and another of nine marlas in Islamabad and six vehicles.

The NAB had said Dar had acquired in his name or in the names of his dependants these assets worth Rs831.7 million, which was disproportionate to his known sources of income, for which he was facing a reference in the accountability court.

According to an official, the government has started taking possession of the seized property of Dar. “It will also take possession of Dar’s other attached properties soon.”

The five-kanal house hit the headlines early last year following the revelation that Dar had got an amenity plot altered to build a road leading to his residence. The Lahore Development Authority (LDA) during the Shahbaz Sharif government in Punjab had taken over 1 kanal and 6 marlas of the park land to build the road.

However, after the Supreme Court took notice of the matter, the LDA restored the public park to its original condition.