Allegations of a support system in Pakistan for Osama bin Laden have been made both before and after

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until his death in 2011. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, his group is designated ...

was found living in a

compound Compound may refer to: Architecture and built environments * Compound (enclosure), a cluster of buildings having a shared purpose, usually inside a fence or wall ** Compound (fortification), a version of the above fortified with defensive struc ...

Abbottabad Abbottabad (; Urdu, Punjabi language(HINDKO dialect) آباد, translit=aibṭabād, ) is the capital city of Abbottabad District in the Hazara region of eastern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is the 40th largest city in Pakistan and fourt ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

and was killed by a team of United States Navy SEALs on 2 May 2011. The compound itself was located just half a mile from Pakistan's premier military training academy

Kakul Military Academy Pakistan Military Academy ( ur, ), also referred to by its acronym PMA. PMA is an officers training school located near Kakul village in the city and district of Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa established in 1947. It is the sole service academy ...

(PMA) in Abbottabad. In the aftermath of bin Laden's death, US-President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, Obama was the first Af ...

asked Pakistan to investigate the network that sustained bin Laden. "We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan", Obama said in a ''

60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who chose to set it apart from other news programs by using a unique st ...

'' interview with

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. He also added that the United States was not sure "who or what that support network was." In addition to this, in an interview with ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

'' magazine, CIA Director

Leon Panetta Leon Edward Panetta (born June 28, 1938) is an American Democratic Party politician who has served in several different public office positions, including Secretary of Defense, CIA Director, White House Chief of Staff, Director of the Office of ...

stated that US-officials did not alert Pakistani counterparts to the raid because they feared the terrorist leader would be warned. However, the documents recovered from bin Laden's compound 'contained nothing to support the idea that bin Laden was protected or supported by the Pakistani officials'. Instead, the documents contained criticism of Pakistani military and future plans for attack against the Pakistani military installations. According to Fred Burton, vice-president of the global intelligence firm

Stratfor Strategic Forecasting Inc., commonly known as Stratfor, is an American geopolitics publisher and consultancy founded in 1996. Stratfor's business model is to provide individual and enterprise subscriptions to Stratfor Worldview, its online public ...

, officials of ISI, Pakistani military, along with one retired Pakistani military general, had knowledge of the arrangements made for bin Laden and the safe house. Bin Laden's compound was razed that day at his Abbottabad safe house. David Ignatius in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'' referred to the claim of the former ISI chief General

Ziauddin Butt General Khawaja Ziauddin Abbasi ( ur, خواجہ ضیاء الدین عباسى), also known as Ziauddin Butt ( ur, ضیاء الدین بٹ), is a retired four-star rank army generalChaudhry, Aminullah (2009) Hijacking from the Ground: The Bi ...

that the

compound was used by the Intelligence Bureau and noted that a report in the Pakistani press in December had quoted him as saying that Osama's stay at Abbottabad was arranged by Brigadier (retired)

Ijaz Shah Ijaz Ahmed Shah is a Pakistani politician, former officer of the Pakistan Army, and a former Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officer.Intelligence Bureau during 2004–2008, on

Pervez Musharraf General Pervez Musharraf ( ur, , Parvez Muśharraf; born 11 August 1943) is a former Pakistani politician and four-star general of the Pakistan Army who became the tenth president of Pakistan after the successful military takeover of t ...

's orders. Later Butt denied making any such statement.

Allegations

Critics cited the very close proximity (800 yards) of bin Laden's heavily fortified compound (a custom-built luxury complex) to the Pakistan's National

Military Academy A military academy or service academy is an educational institution which prepares candidates for service in the officer corps. It normally provides education in a military environment, the exact definition depending on the country concerned. ...

(PMA), Pakistan's "

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

", and that the United States chose not to notify Pakistani authorities before the operation, and the alleged double standards of Pakistan regarding the perpetrators of the

2008 Mumbai attacks The 2008 Mumbai attacks (also referred to as 26/11, pronounced "twenty six eleven") were a series of terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist terrorist organisation from Pakistan, c ...

. US-government files leaked by

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...

disclosed that American diplomats were told that Pakistani security services were tipping off bin Laden every time US-forces approached. Pakistan's

Inter-Services Intelligence The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI; ur, , bayn khadamatiy mukhabarati) is the premier intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant ...

(ISI) also helped smuggle al Qaeda militants into Afghanistan to fight

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two N ...

troops. According to the leaked files, in December 2009, the government of Tajikistan had told US-officials that many in Pakistan were aware of bin Laden's whereabouts. The

, Director of the CIA, and later

US Secretary of Defense The United States secretary of defense (SecDef) is the head of the United States Department of Defense, the executive department of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is a high ranking member of the federal cabinet. DoDD 5100.1: Enclosure 2: a The s ...

, stated that Pakistan was "either involved or incompetent." In an interview to

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Obviously the concern has always been how could a compound like this, how could bin Laden be in an area where there were military establishments, where we could see the military operating and not have them know.

Regarding the US decision to withhold intelligence about the raid from Pakistan, he said,

The concern we had is that...we had provided intelligence to them with regards to other areas and unfortunately, for one way or another, it got leaked to the individuals we were trying to go after, so as a result of that we were concerned that if we were going to perform a sensitive mission like this, we had to do it on our own.

Talking about the support network Panetta stated that some "lower rank" officers in the military knew where Bin Laden was hiding. The defense secretary said,

Well, you know, these situations sometimes, the leadership within Pakistan is obviously not aware of certain things and yet people lower down in the military establishment find it very well, they've been aware of it, ...But bottom line is that we have not had evidence that provides that direct link.

Husain Haqqani the former- Pakistan Ambassador to the United States, who earlier said both countries "cooperated in making sure" that the operation leading to bin Laden's death was "successful", has admitted that Osama bin laden indeed had a support system in Pakistan, albeit without the Pakistani government being privy to this fact.

Obviously, bin Laden did have a support system (in Pakistan). The issue was that support system within the government and the state of Pakistan or within the society of Pakistan, ...We all know that there are people in Pakistan who share the same belief system as bin Laden and other extremists... So that is a fact, that there are people who probably protected him... We did not know. We had no knowledge bout Bin Laden And if we had knowledge, we would have acted upon it long ago" —Mr. Haqqani said in an interview.

A Pakistani official, speaking anonymously, said "We assisted only in terms of authorization of the helicopter flights in our airspace" and that "we did not want anything to do with such an operation in case something went wrong." US Senator

Joe Lieberman Joseph Isadore Lieberman (; born February 24, 1942) is an American politician, lobbyist, and attorney who served as a United States senator from Connecticut from 1989 to 2013. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was its nominee for ...

, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said "This is going to be a time of real pressure on Pakistan to basically prove to us that they didn't know that bin Laden was there". John O. Brennan, Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor, said that it was inconceivable that bin Laden did not have support from within Pakistan. He further stated: "People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. We are looking at how he was able to hide out there for so long." Senator

Dianne Feinstein Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein ( ; born Dianne Emiel Goldman; June 22, 1933) is an American politician who serves as the senior United States senator from California, a seat she has held since 1992. A member of the Democratic Party, she wa ...

said that "it's hard for me to understand how the Pakistanis ... would not know what was going on inside the compound", and that top Pakistan officials may be "walking both sides of the street." Senator

Lindsey Graham Lindsey Olin Graham (born July 9, 1955) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from South Carolina, a seat he has held since 2003. A member of the Republican Party, Graham chaired the Senate Committee on ...

questioned, "How could in Ladenbe in such a compound without being noticed?", raising suspicions that Pakistan was either uncommitted in the fight against Islamist militants or was actively sheltering them while pledging to fight them. A Pakistani intelligence official said that they had passed on raw phone tap data to the United States that led to the operation, but had failed to analyze this data themselves.

Carl Levin Carl Milton Levin (June 28, 1934 – July 29, 2021) was an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Michigan from 1979 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the chair of the Senate Armed Services ...

who is chairman

United States Senate Committee on Armed Services The Committee on Armed Services (sometimes abbreviated SASC for ''Senate Armed Services Committee'') is a committee of the United States Senate empowered with legislative oversight of the nation's military, including the Department of Def ...

stated that he believes Pakistani officials knew the location of bin Laden and had "no doubt" they also know the location of other senior al-Qaeda operatives. He said Pakistan's intelligence and army have "got a lot of explaining to do," given that bin Laden was holed up in such a large house with surrounding buildings, the fact that its residents took the unusual step of burning their garbage and avoiding any trash collection. He further stated, "It's hard to imagine that the military or police did not have any ideas what was going on inside of that." After the raid, the US asked that Pakistan identify its top intelligence operatives as it tried to establish if any of them had contact with bin Laden in the last few years.

Mosharraf Zaidi Mosharraf Zaidi is a Pakistani-Canadian public policy professional and the founder and CEO of Tabadlab, an Islamabad-based policy think-tank. He writes a weekly column for ''The News International'' and is a senior advisor for the ''Albright ...

, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state."

had revealed that a US diplomatic dispatch told the Americans that "many" inside Pakistan knew where bin Laden was. The document stated that "In Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden wasn't an invisible man, and many knew his whereabouts in North Waziristan, but whenever security forces attempted a raid on his hideouts, the enemy received warning of their approach from sources in the security forces." Indian Minister for Home Affairs P. Chidambaram said that bin Laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was a matter of grave concern for India, and showed that "many of the perpetrators of the

Mumbai terror attacks The 2008 Mumbai attacks (also referred to as 26/11, pronounced "twenty six eleven") were a series of Terrorism, terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist terrorist organisation from P ...

, including the controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He called on Pakistan to arrest them. ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' reported local police saying that the compound belonged to

Hizbul Mujahideen Hizbul Mujahideen, also spelled Hizb-ul-Mujahideen ( ar, حزب المجاھدین, ), is an Islamism, Islamist militant organization operating in the Kashmir region. Its goal is to separate Kashmir Valley, Kashmir from India and merge it with ...

, a militant group supported by ISI which is fighting Indian forces in Kashmir. In October 2011, former Pakistani Army Chief, General

has asserted that Osama bin Laden was kept in an Intelligence Bureau safe house in Abbottabad by the then Director-General of the

Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan The Intelligence Bureau ( ur, ) is a civilian intelligence agency in Pakistan. Established in 1947, the IB is Pakistan's oldest intelligence agency. Appointments and supervision of its operations are authorized by the Prime Minister of Pakistan ...

(2004–2008), Brigadier

Ijaz Shah Ijaz Ahmed Shah is a Pakistani politician, former officer of the Pakistan Army, and a former Pakistan Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officer.Pervez Musharraf General Pervez Musharraf ( ur, , Parvez Muśharraf; born 11 August 1943) is a former Pakistani politician and four-star general of the Pakistan Army who became the tenth president of Pakistan after the successful military takeover of t ...

and possibly that of current Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General

Ashfaq Pervez Kayani General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani (Urdu: ; born 20 April 1952), is a retired four-star general of the Pakistan Army who served as the 8th Chief of Army Staff , being appointed on 29 November 2007 after his predecessor Pervez Musharraf retired from ...

. In December 2017, former USA President

said: "We had no evidence that Pakistani government was aware of Osama bin Laden's presence there but that is something obviously we looked at."

Pakistan's denial

In a 2005 interview, the then-president Musharraf emphatically denied bin Laden was in Pakistan, stating "One thing is very sure, let me assure you, that we are not going to hide him for a rainy day and then release him to take advantage." Pakistan's president

Asif Ali Zardari Asif Ali Zardari ( ur, ; sd, ; born 26 July 1955) is a Pakistani politician who is the president of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians and was the co-chairperson of Pakistan People's Party. He served as the 11th president of Pakist ...

denied that his country's security forces may have sheltered Osama bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government "baseless speculation." The Pakistani foreign office issued a statement that "categorically denies" media reports that Pakistan's leadership, "civil as well as military, had any prior knowledge of the US operation against Osama bin Laden." Pakistan's former president

denied that officials in his country were responsible, calling bin Laden's presence in Pakistan a "blunder". Musharraf said instead that there was a possibility that rogue lower-level members of Pakistan's intelligence and military may have had knowledge of bin Laden's location. He conceded they might have known during the last year of his presidency six years ago, and said there ought to be an investigation. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of Pakistan's powerful Directorate of

(ISI), conceded that Osama bin Laden's presence in Pakistan had been an "intelligence failure" but denied his ISI could have had any role in hiding Bin Laden. "If we had shielded Osama bin Laden, why would we have killed and arrested so many al-Qaeda leaders?" he stated "Would we have hidden such a large target in such an exposed area? Without any guards or escape route?"

Follow-up by Pakistani authorities

Regardless of Pakistan's claims about their previous conduct, many outside observers have raised ongoing concerns that most of the people jailed by them since Bin Laden's killing have been those who were trying to help capture him, rather than those who helped shield him. One such incident would be when doctor Shakil Afridi who assisted the CIA in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, was arrested several weeks after the killing of bin Laden. A Pakistani court imposed a 33-year sentence on the doctor. The doctor was eventually tried under a tribal judicial system that denies the accused the right to have an attorney or to present evidence. According to ''The Washington Post'', the Doctor could have received the death penalty if he had been tried under normal Pakistani law. ″It is now indisputable that militancy in Pakistan is supported by the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence). Pakistan's fight against militancy is bogus. It's just to extract money from America,″ Dr Shakil Afridi stated in an interview with

Fox News The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is o ...

. He was interviewed from inside

Peshawar Peshawar (; ps, پېښور ; hnd, ; ; ur, ) is the sixth most populous city in Pakistan, with a population of over 2.3 million. It is situated in the north-west of the country, close to the International border with Afghanistan. It is ...

Central Jail, where he is being held by Pakistani authorities. According to his statements, the Pakistani authorities said, 'The Americans are our worst enemies, worse than the Indians,' and he suffered ′crippling torture′ and ′psychological abuse′ during the 12 months he was held by Pakistani spy agency for helping the US. He further revealed the fact that the ISI is in collusion with terrorists.

Abbottabad Commission report

A judge-led inquiry set up by Pakistani government in 2011, based on interviews with 201 sources found there was evidence of incompetence at every level in the Pakistan's intelligence and security services and it did not rule out the involvement of rogue elements within the Pakistani intelligence service. The 336-page Abbottabad Commission Report, obtained in July 2013 by

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazee ...

, blasted Pakistan's civilian and military leadership for "gross incompetence" over the bin Laden affair. It found that by 2005, Pakistani intelligence was no longer actively pursuing intelligence that could lead to his capture. The report called the handling of the bin Laden situation a "natural disaster" and even called on the leadership to apologize to the people of Pakistan for their "dereliction of duty." Al Jazeera reported that the government's intention in conducting the inquiry was likely aimed at "regime continuance, when the regime is desperate to distance itself from any responsibility for the national disaster that occurred on its watch" and was likely "a reluctant response to an overwhelming public and parliamentary demand." Lack of intelligence on bin Laden's nine-year residence in the country was blamed on "Government Implosion Syndrome." Lack of knowledge of a CIA support network without Pakistan being aware was "a case of collective and sustained dereliction of duty by the political, military, and intelligence leadership." Although the report focused on the night of the raid, it had other findings. One was that bin Laden had been living in Pakistan since 2002, after surviving the

Battle of Tora Bora The Battle of Tora Bora was a military engagement that took place in the cave complex of Tora Bora, eastern Afghanistan, from December 6–17, 2001, during the opening stages of the United States invasion of Afghanistan. It was launched by the ...

. Another was that he and some family members moved into the compound in Abbottabad in 2005, the same year Pakistani intelligence stopped independently looking for him.

Statements from other countries

* : Defense ministry spokesman said that ISI must have known that bin Laden was in Abbottabad prior to the US killing him. The former chief of Afghan Intelligence, Amrullah Saleh, said he had told

in 2007 that bin Laden was hiding near Abbottabad, but Musharraf angrily shot down his claim. * : Prime Minister Julia Gillard on May 3, 2011 said bin Laden "absolutely" had a support network in Pakistan. * :

Minister for Home Affairs An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergenc ...

, P. Chidambaram said that bin Laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was a matter of grave concern for India, and showed that "many of the perpetrators of the

, including the controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He also called on Pakistan to arrest them. * : Foreign Minister

Alain Juppé Alain Marie Juppé (; born 15 August 1945) is a French politician. A member of The Republicans, he was Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997 under President Jacques Chirac, during which period he faced major strikes that paralysed the cou ...

said "I find it a little difficult to imagine that the presence of someone like bin Laden in a big compound in a relatively small town, even if located at 80 km from the center of Islamabad, could go completely unnoticed. ..Pakistan's position ..lacks clarity in our view, I hope that we will have more clarity." * : According to US documents leaked by

in December 2009, the Government of Tajikistan had warned the US that efforts to apprehend Osama Bin Laden were being thwarted by Pakistani intelligence. * : Prime Minister

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

stated: "The fact that Bin Laden was living in a large house in a populated area suggests that he must have had a support network in Pakistan. We don't currently know the extent of that network, so it is right that we ask searching questions about it. And we will." Pakistani-born

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Khalid Mahmood Khalid Mahmood (also spelled Mahmud) may refer to: * Allama Khalid Mahmood (1925–2020), Islamic scholar and former Justice of Supreme Court of Pakistan (Shariat Appellate Bench). * Khaled Mahmud (born 1971), Bangladeshi cricketer * Khalid Mahmo ...

stated that he was "flabbergasted and shocked" after he learned that bin Laden was living in a city with thousands of Pakistani troops, reviving questions about alleged links between al-Qaeda and elements in Pakistan's security forces.

Impact on US–Pakistan relations

The United States suspended about a third of its $2.7 billion annual defense aid to Pakistan. In November 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump stated Pakistan helped Osama hide in the country, accusing Pakistan of not doing "a damn thing for us" and defending his administration's decision to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Islamabad. In an interview with Fox News aired on November 18, Trump accused Pakistan of helping to hide Osama bin Laden. He stated, "But living in Pakistan right next to the military academy, everybody in Pakistan knew he was there".

Documents recovered from bin Laden's compound

During the raid on the compound,

US navy SEALs The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEALs' main functions are conducting sm ...

were able to recover some 470,000 computer files from a trove of ten hard drives, five computers and around one hundred thumb drives and disks. The documents recovered from the compound contained nothing to support the idea that bin Laden was protected by Pakistani officials or that he was in communication with them. Instead, the documents contained criticism of Pakistani military and future plans for attacks against Pakistani military targets.

Steve Coll Steve Coll (born October 8, 1958) is an American journalist, academic and executive. He is currently the dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he is also the Henry R. Luce Professor of Journalism. A staff writer f ...

confirms that as of 2019 no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad has been found, and that captured documents from the Abbottabad compound suggest bin Laden was wary of contact with Pakistani intelligence and police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (sometimes also spelled Shaikh; also known by at least 50 pseudonyms; born March 1, 1964 or April 14, 1965) is a Pakistani Islamist militant held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp under terrorism-re ...

References

External links

* {{Osama bin Laden Abbottabad District History of the foreign relations of Pakistan Osama bin Laden 2011 in Pakistan Al-Qaeda Allegations Pakistan Army Islamism in Pakistan Pakistan military scandals 2011 in Pakistani politics