The Exile

by Adrian Levy

  Doubt was undermining truth. “Did you hear anything that forced them to release you … to Waziristan? We need to know if they intended to send you in this direction so they can follow your movement.” Did Hamzah think this was a trap? Had Khairiah had her teeth x-rayed yet? Had anything shown up in her medical examination, like a tracking chip that, according to Khalid’s recent research, could be implanted under the skin and be “the length of a grain of wheat and the width of a fine piece of vermicelli”? Could she remember the date of her last dental treatment? Or the last time an Iranian doctor had seen her? Osama demanded “every detail to help me from the security point of view.”

  While Mohammed and Othman were now safely in Karachi, he wrote of his concern that Hamzah was still in Waziristan, a dangerous region where two of his children had already perished. “What gives me solace is that they died in the land of jihad,” Osama wrote, “and that was their destiny.” As far as his own survival, almost a decade after 9/11: “God has been generous to me.” Hamzah had to be moved immediately.

  Returning to Khairiah’s transportation to Abbottabad, Osama finished off: “In the coming days the brother will come from our side [Ibrahim]. He will ask Mohammed Aslam if you are ready to come … if you have finished your treatment and are sure about the security matters that worry you.”

  Along with the letter, the Sheikh sent 25,000 Pakistani rupees and a box of Saudi dates to sustain Khairiah on her journey.29 But he remained worried.

  Wrapped up in several dupattas, Khairiah bin Laden entered Bilal Town after dark on February 12, driving past banners promoting a FREE MEDICAL CAMP AND POLIO CAMPAIGN featuring a Save the Children logo and the beaming face of a well-regarded local doctor.30 Ibrahim had gone to collect her from Peshawar, taking Khalid along as the rules of purdah had to be strictly observed, even in times of war.

  As the huge metal gates of the compound opened and swallowed up the white Suzuki jeep, everyone inside the vehicle must have exhaled with relief.

  Ibrahim’s and Abrar’s families had been sent away for the night so their children would not see the new arrival, and the only sound came from bullfrogs croaking in the fields.

  Waiting on the second floor of the main house, Osama was on tenterhooks. He had many things to discuss with Khairiah, his voice of reason and sounding board, who he had last seen in September 2001. In January 2011, the government of Tunisia had been overthrown and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak had resigned just the previous day. Signs that the mujahideen were gaining ground globally could be seen everywhere.

  This was “the beginning of a new era,” she declared as she greeted family members who respectfully lined up. She kissed the foreheads of grandchildren she had never met. She tried to hug Seham but her sister-wife stiffened. An age had passed since they had parted in Quetta in early 2002. Seham was deeply worried about Khairiah’s arrival and by the possibility that she had been followed or used. Several times she had tried to talk her husband out of letting Khairiah come, but he had not listened. Amal, to whom Khairiah had been so unwelcoming in Kandahar, watched in silence as the older woman, who everyone greeted as Umm Hamzah (mother of Hamzah), immediately began bossing them about.

  Osama had organized a modest celebration—a meal of chicken and vegetables from Khalid’s garden. After the plates were cleared he asked Khairiah to share her news.

  She started with Hamzah, who she had left behind at Sarah’s house near Mir Ali, passed on what little she knew of Mohammed and Othman’s journey to Karachi, and ended with Iran, where some family members remained.

  Osama asked one question. In the past few days, Atiyah had told him that Time magazine was reporting the release of more family members from the Tehran compound.31 Was it Fatima and her husband, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith?

  Khairiah had no idea. She made no mention of the fact that there had been a falling-out in Iran and that, before she left, Osama’s children and the Al Qaeda shura had all tried to stop her from going to Abbottabad. Fierce arguments had broken out. “The Quds Force will follow you,” they had complained. “Our father will be compromised.” She had disagreed. She was Osama’s eldest and most senior wife and would do what she pleased. She was smarter than all of them.32

  Khairiah tried to rally the family. She noticed Khalid was looking wan and asked about his forthcoming marriage. She offered to write to Karima’s mother, suggesting that her voice could add authority to the message that the bin Laden family wanted it to go ahead despite the interminable delays.

  Without waiting for a reply, she demanded pen and paper. “We rejoice after meeting,” Khairiah wrote, “and seeing Khalid, the mujahid, who still has the hope to urgently marry into your family. He is trying very hard to reach you: finding a brother who can help him take the necessary steps to set up a meeting.”33

  This match was meant to be, she declared, informing Karima’s mother that Khalid had had a vision that all of them would be reunited. Look on the bright side, she continued: the delays had furnished Khalid and Karima with more “intellectual maturity” with which to face their future together.

  Seham wanted to ask more about the circumstances surrounding Khairiah’s release but the elder woman looked exhausted.34 As she showed her upstairs, Khairiah took in the mess. The women’s quarters were filled with dirty bolsters, broken kitchen appliances, and old clothes—filthy compared to their husband’s pristine domain. Since Bushra and Maryam never came inside, the kitchen areas and bathrooms were rarely cleaned. How far their standards had slipped from the Jeddah days, when they had been surrounded by servants.

  Khairiah was more worried about her personal Koran, which, as she unpacked, she realized she had left behind at Sarah’s house in Waziristan. Certain that this was a bad omen, Seham asked Osama to send for it as soon as he could.35

  That night Osama and Khairiah shared a bedroom for the first time in a decade and talked about their son Hamzah. He was deeply frustrated in Sarah’s house, Khairiah warned. For him, it was simply a “new prison.” The boy was eager to train with the other mujahideen. But Atiyah, ever protective and mindful of the tragic Saad episode, kept him inside the house, warning that he would have to obtain his father’s written approval before commencing military training. Khairiah had tried to impress patience on her son, but like his father he would not listen. Osama penned a brief letter. Hamzah had to stay hidden inside the compound, “unless it is absolutely necessary” to go out. He needed distractions. Perhaps he should correspond with his older brother Mohammed, who was thinking of heading to Qatar rather than staying at a safe house in Peshawar.36 “Write details no one but he is privy to, so that he knows that the letter is in fact written by Hamzah,” Osama instructed via Atiyah.37

  A few days later, the Sheikh received a reply.

  “Dear Father, I have a strong desire to meet with you,” Hamzah wrote, adding that now that mujahideen and mountains surrounded him, his urge to join the jihad was stronger than ever. “I would like to come and spend some time with you, after which I will serve the religion. This is my aspiration.” He was eager to receive training. “I need to join the brothers serving in Afghanistan to fight the enemies of Allah.” Until that day came, he felt only frustration, although he was mature enough to understand that Atiyah’s primary concern was his safety. “Bless them, they are very careful, which keeps me from doing anything.” He was caught between needing to learn and wanting to fight. “I do not want to work without planning or security and I do not want to stay without work.”38

  Hamzah had news about possessions that had once belonged to his dead half siblings, Khadija and Saad. They had just arrived at Sarah’s house and included a box containing gold bars bought in Jeddah.39 Inside another box was Khadija’s jewelry and two gold and emerald lockets bought in Jeddah by Daood for his daughters Aisha and Seham.40 He would bring everything to Abbottabad.

  As the new arrival settled in, everyone began to relax. There were no Quds Force agents knocking at the door, no reports of Khairiah’s journey fro
m the border having been tracked. Putting all his worries behind him, Osama was keen to get started on his 9/11 documentary. What were his wife’s thoughts? Had she written anything down? She gave him a message from Atiyah, who still had not followed through on his notice to quit. Something more pressing needed to be composed first, he had told Khairiah.

  Osama needed to address the recent dramatic events in other parts of the Muslim world, one “showing solidarity”and to “demonstrate your pleasure” in the uprisings that had rippled across North Africa and even the Gulf. Atiyah had jotted down the main points.

  Osama and Khairiah got to work. “To my Muslim Ummah,” he dictated. “The people of the world who were previously held prisoner have succeeded in escaping from the slavery of their tyrant rulers.” Just as his wife had escaped the “tyrant’s fist” in Tehran, the entire ummah should look forward to freedom. “We have to take charge of the reins and free ourselves … With the Muslim revolution in Egypt, this shall ignite the sentiments felt by the Islamic Arab World.”41

  The speech ranged from betrayal to death. “The Arabs say that killing prevents death,” Osama wrote, predicting that more blood would have to be shed. “I understand completely that exposing the Children of the Ummah to battle/death is extremely difficult, however there is no other means to rescue them. There is no one that may go into battle without being exposed to death.”

  As a result of the $5 million ransom paid by Hamid Karzai’s government for the kidnapped Afghan diplomat, Al Qaeda had settled its debts, and Atiyah was buying new weapons in preparation for an offensive, should peace talks with the ISI collapse.42 Al Qaeda scouts had already been sent out and reportedly had penetrated a Pakistani naval base in Karachi, where they were biding their time.43

  Younis al-Mauritani’s recruits were also on their way to Europe, ready to set off whatever plans were incubating there.

  That still left Hamzah. How was he to reach Abbottabad?

  He sent a letter to his mother, asking for updates: “Dear Mother, how are you? I miss you. I hope that your trip was not bad and the cold did not bother you.”44 He signed it with a code name, Abu Ma’adh. He was writing while everyone was asleep, he said, adding that he could not rest until he knew when he was coming. “If you have a chance to write tell me what I can take and what is too dangerous to take; you know how important books are to me. Can I take them or not?”

  Maryam, his wife, added her own note. “Say hello to everybody, we miss you, it’s empty around here without you. The Pashtuns ask about you a lot and Imad’s wife was mad that she did not see you. Please write back … Tell Miriam and Sumaiya that I miss them a lot.”

  But Hamzah was not moving just yet.

  Emboldened by Khairiah’s seamless arrival, Osama dispatched new orders to Atiyah. “Upon your receipt of my letter, your administrative work in Waziristan will end.” Leaving Hamzah for now in the care of Sarah, Atiyah was to relocate to Peshawar, while Osama planned to “arrange for you a quiet house in the area that we are in.” Together, they could map out Al Qaeda’s response “to the monumental event that is taking place.”

  His time was now. America was suffering its worst financial crisis in living memory. Pakistan was wracked by unrest. So was the Arab world. Leadership was needed. Together they would “reinstate the rule of the Caliphate.” Osama’s life in exile was coming to an end.45

  February 25, 2011, CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia

  The meeting was planned after dusk on a Friday to minimize the chances of anyone finding out. Joining CIA director Panetta, Admiral McRaven, and Mike Mullen’s deputy, James Cartwright, in the windowless conference room were the Pentagon’s chief counterterrorism adviser, Michael Vickers, and a row of senior CTC officials.

  A four-foot-square scale model of the Abbottabad compound dominated the oval table in front of them. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency had built it out of clay and Styrofoam, and it was accurate down to the mirrored film masking the second- and third-floor windows, the satellite dish on the roof of the sunroom, and the Pacer’s tarpaulin-covered circuit to the east of the main house. There was even a tiny model of Ibrahim’s red minivan parked outside.46

  The analysts, some of whom had worked on tracking Osama for most of their careers, walked the visitors through the layout and their intelligence assessments. Then the military took the floor and went through a spreadsheet listing possible courses of action, most of them described as “kinetic”—which was Pentagon-speak for lethal combat. The gathering was a dress rehearsal for the first National Security Council meeting with the president.47 They needed to have an answer to every question.

  When the team met again in the White House Situation Room on March 14, President Obama reminded everyone that Pakistan had to be kept out of the loop. After listening to the presentations and studying the scale model, he asked Admiral McRaven how long it would take to finesse a raid option. When McRaven replied “three weeks,” the president interjected: “Then you’d better get moving.”48

  Two days later, as McRaven and two senior JSOC officers discussed whether to drop the SEAL team some distance from the compound and allow them to proceed on foot across the fields or insert them directly onto the roof of AC1, a closed-court hearing took place inside Kot Lakhpat prison in Lahore to decide Raymond Davis’s fate. General Pasha was in attendance, sitting at the back silently, with his cell phone in hand, while a judge decided what to do about the American prisoners.

  Early March 2011, Lahore

  U.S. ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, a pragmatist who had also served in Iraq, had come clean. Davis was with the CIA, he had told Pasha, trying to unblock negotiations. And the United States wanted Davis out of Kot Lakhpat as quickly as possible because several inmates had died there under suspicious circumstances.49 Intelligence suggested Davis might be poisoned, too.

  Pasha smiled stiffly. Privately, he was delighted that Munter was asking for his help, as this put him in a rare position of power.50 Afterward, he contacted Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington, D.C., Husain Haqqani: “What should they do?” President Zardari had asked Haqqani the same question, as had officials in the CIA. “The Pakistan military wanted him to go. He was a problem, getting in the way of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. At the same time it was important to act within Pakistan law as Davis had committed a crime.”

  Haqqani realized the only legal way to settle the matter so domestic law was not broken was by raising blood money. “It is a legitimate strategy in Pakistan,” Haqqani recalled. “I gave the idea to Leon Panetta. And I gave the idea to Pasha.”

  A week later, Pasha returned to the negotiating table saying he had a possible solution based on the sharia tradition of diyat, or blood money. If the families of the dead men agreed to take it, the matter could be settled outside the jurisdiction of the Lahore High Court.51

  The ISI made sure the families made the right decision. “There is a padlock on their door. Their phones are all switched off,” said a cousin of one of the parties involved, who revealed that their lawyers had been detained.52 At any other time, America might have excoriated Pakistan for resorting to brutal tactics. But Washington, mindful of the building AC1 operation, needed to get Davis out of the country.

  After the families of the dead men filed into the temporary courtroom and agreed to accept a total of two hundred million Pakistani rupees (approximately $2.34 million), Pasha sent a text message to Munter, who relayed the sentiments to Washington.53 The matter was settled. Davis was a free man.54

  News about his release was kept bottled up until the contractor was airborne. Only then did anti-American protests flare in several cities across Pakistan, rallies addressed by Hamid Gul, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, and Hafiz Saeed, who whipped up instant crowds.

  I AM RAYMOND DAVIS, GIVE ME A BREAK, I AM JUST A CIA HIT MAN, declared the freshly painted banners.

  Asked whether relations with the CIA were now improving, General Pasha told acquaintances, “It hasn’t deteriorated.” But
privately he was still furious and refused to take Mark Kelton’s calls, referring to him as “the cadaver.”

  Many in Washington had been counting down the days to March 18, the official date of General Pasha’s retirement as ISI director, only to learn that General Kayani was giving his spy chief a year’s extension. No one else was as experienced or sufficiently wily to do this job, Kayani told his corps commanders.55

  When the official announcement was made, declaring the intention as “ensuring continuity,” the decision—made behind closed doors, in contravention of rules or etiquette—was in reality a reflection of the ISI’s determination to maintain continuity with its takeover of the Pakistani military elite.56

  Concerned with the prospect of another twelve months of animosity—even without taking into account the forthcoming Abbottabad raid—in early April, General Pasha was summoned to “DC to discuss the issue” of deteriorating relations. Before he left for the United States, he deliberately put a positive spin on Pakistan’s domestic security situation. “You can see things are much better,” he told a friend in the media. Attacks were down and limited to the Tribal Areas. His only regret was that the army had not gone into North Waziristan many years back, when he was director general of military operations, and taken on Al Qaeda and the Taliban face-to-face. It was a bone of contention between himself and Kayani that they had missed their chance there. Now, the only way to reach Al Qaeda and the Pakistan Taliban was through South Waziristan, where the army was busy building roads but slow on resettling residents.

  By the time General Pasha met Leon Panetta on April 11, his mood had darkened. With Davis freed, drone strikes had resumed—immediately. One blitzkrieg on the Nomada bus depot, in Datta Khel, had obliterated an entire jirga of forty-four tribal elders who had nothing to do with Al Qaeda, triggering anti-American demonstrations all over Pakistan when photographs of the carnage were published.