The Exile
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17. This account is based mainly on O’Neill and Bissonnette; the authors deal with the inconsistencies in their accounts later in the chapter.
18. Author interview with Amal’s brother Zakariya al-Sadeh, Islamabad, February 2012.
19. O’Neill made no mention of shooting Amal but claimed he had simply wrestled her onto the bed and flex-cuffed her.
20. Owen and Maurer, No Easy Day.
21. Bin Laden wives’ accounts to Abbottabad Commission, author interviews with bin Laden family members, plus O’Neill and Bissonnette accounts.
22. Owen and Maurer, No Easy Day.
23. After cleaning blood off the face with water from a CamelBak.
24. Owen and Maurer, No Easy Day.
25. Author interview with Samirah Abdullah, who later visited Osama’s widows in Saudi Arabia. Amman, Jordan, December 2016.
26. Khairiah told the Abbottabad Commission that the SEAL who manhandled her looked as frightened as she was, as if “he had seen a witch” when they came face-to-face.
27. “Osama bin Laden Dead, Wife Watched Him Die as White House Reveals He Wasn’t Armed,” Mail Online, May 4, 2011.
28. O’Neill said that the third-floor action took fifteen seconds.
29. Bashir Ahmed claimed to have seen “pieces of helicopter lying everywhere as a result of the explosion.” Bashir Ahmed’s account can be watched here: www.dailymotion.com/video/xzy069_eyewitness-account-of-bin-laden-killing-in-abbottabad-with-subtitles_news.
30. The constable was Nazar Mohammad.
31. “Bin Laden Raid Aftermath: Eyewitness Account,” Asharq Al-Awsat, May 10, 2011.
32. The military academy commander was named by Shaukat Qadir as Lieutenant Colonel Naseem Anwar of the Nineteenth Frontier Forces; see Operation Geronimo. The ISI Colonel was not named.
33. This exchange is recounted in the Abbottabad Commission report.
34. Owen and Maurer, No Easy Day.
35. Recollections of Robert O’Neill and Matthew Bissonnette.
36. Author interview with Zakariya al-Sadeh; plus Jonathan Allen, “Bin Laden Had Cash, Was Ready to Flee,” Politico, May 4, 2011.
37. Joseph Braude, “Iran Was al-Qaeda’s ‘Main Artery for Funds, Personnel, Communication’: Bin Laden,” Ya Libnan (Lebanon), June 18, 2016.
38. Bronstein, “The Shooter.” Matthew Bissonnette claimed in an interview that he and several others were astonished. “Washington was leaking everything and we were going to get the lecture for it,” he recalled. Michael Daly, “Outcry over SEAL Matt Bissonnette’s bin Laden Book Reveals Pentagon Hypocrisy,” Daily Beast, September 13, 2012.
39. Author interviews with member of the Abbottabad Commission, Islamabad, February 2015.
40. Author interviews with Maryam family members, 2014–2015.
41. Sohaib Athar tweeted all the details.
42. Shaukat Qadir gave an account of this conversation with Seham in his book, Operation Geronimo.
43. The inspector general of police for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa told the Abbottabad Commission that he only learned of the incident at seven A.M. from television reports.
44. Author interviews with General Athar Abbas, Rawalpindi, June 2014.
45. General Athar received word from Kayani that President Obama was not planning to make a televised statement until afternoon time in Washington, D.C. Pakistan could not wait that long, Athar warned, urging the chief of army staff to say “something right away.” Eventually, Kayani got through to Admiral Mike Mullen and asked, “Please do it at eight A.M. our time.”
46. White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Remarks of the President on Osama bin Laden,” May 2, 2011, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/02/remarks-president-osama-bin-laden. “I’ve repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was,” he said. “That is what we’ve done. It’s important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding.”
47. When General Athar called the prime minister’s office, he was told, “Whatever GHQ [general headquarters] is saying is our official response.” Worried that Pakistan’s international reputation was being damaged by the official silence, he suggested a joint press conference with the Ministry of Information, ISPR, and the Foreign Office. After receiving no official responses, he left another message for Kayani: “We should give a direction or spin. Or this thing is going to eat us.” Kayani did not reply. Author interviews with General Athar.
48. Months later, General Athar spoke privately to General Kayani, saying that his initial silence after the raid had damaged the army. “You should have come to see me personally,” retorted Kayani.
49. Alexander Mullaney and Syeda Amna Hassan, “He Led the CIA to bin Laden—and Unwittingly Fueled a Vaccine Backlash,” National Geographic, February 27, 2015; and Matthieu Aikens, “The Doctor, the CIA, and the Blood of Bin Laden,” GQ, December 19, 2012.
50. White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney and Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John Brennan,” May 2, 2011, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/02/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-and-assistant-president-homela.
51. General Pasha to the Abbottabad Commission: “If ISI was hiding Osama bin Laden it would not have hidden him in such an exposed building.” The ISI was “neither complicit nor incompetent with respect to the presence of bin Laden in Pakistan.” The ISI’s record on America’s “war on terror” spoke for itself.
52. Author interviews with General Athar Abbas.
53. Author telephone interviews with Mansoor Ijaz, July and August 2016.
54. Author interviews with Wajid Shamsul Hasan, London, 2011–2016.
55. The foreign secretary, Salman Bashir, claimed that two Pakistani F16 fighter jets had been airborne as soon as the Pakistani military knew about the operation and that “Pakistani security forces are neither incompetent or negligent.”
56. In a closed meeting with carefully selected Pakistani reporters, Kayani was more candid and admitted to “intelligence failures,” describing the American raid as a “misadventure.”
57. Author interviews with General Athar Abbas.
58. Syed Saleem Shahzad, “The Life and Death of Osama bin Laden: Pakistan Has a Price to Pay,” Asia Times Online, May 4, 2011.
59. Jon Boone, “Najam Sethi: The TV Star Who Dared to Take On Pakistan’s Spy Agency,” Guardian, July 18, 2002.
60. Jane Perlez, “Pakistani Army Chief Warns U.S. on Another Raid,” New York Times, May 5, 2011.
61. “Kayani Blasts Government for Osama Raid Aftermath,” Hindustan Times, May 10, 2011.
62. Fareed Zakaria, “With Bin Laden Gone, Now’s the Time to Push Pakistan,” Washington Post, May 11, 2011.
63. Greg Miller, “After Presiding over Bin Laden Raid, CIA Chief in Pakistan Came Home Suspecting He Was Poisoned by ISI,” Washington Post, May 5, 2016.
64. Author telephone interview with Husain Haqqani, August 2016.
65. General Pasha ordered an investigation, saying that Iqbal was “a more suspicious character.” “His profile matched that of a likely CIA recruit,” Pasha concluded. “He was a trained intelligence operator and was regarded as being involved in supplying the CIA with trade intelligence.”
66. Author interviews with Husain Haqqani.
67. Army medic and Osama neighbor Major Amir Aziz was also
relocated to the United States with Husain Haqqani’s assistance. A story appeared suggesting that he had been recruited by the ISI as personal doctor to the ailing Al Qaeda leader. Pasha later defended Aziz, saying the “ISI had not found him worth investigating” and that he could not be connected to the U.S. raid.
68. Author interviews with Afridi family members, also Aikens, “The Doctor, the CIA, and the Blood of Bin Laden.”
69. Husain Haqqani, “What Pakistan Knew about the Bin Laden Raid,” Foreign Policy, May 13, 2015.
70. Huma Imtiaz, “ISI Chief Lands in Washington,” Express Tribune (Pakistan), July 13, 2011.
71. He also said, “If the ISI was hiding OBL why would it have provided information on the Kuwaiti brothers?” referring to the ISI’s role in the eavesdropping on Osama’s companions. Pakistan would have been “very favourably placed internationally” if it had apprehended the Al Qaeda leader, he continued. “There were no indications of [Osama bin Laden’s] presence or existence. After a while the ISI began to believe he had probably died.” Although Pasha was willing to admit to “an intelligence failure,” there had been neither “facilitation nor connivance.”
72. Azaz Syed, The Secrets of Pakistan’s War on Al-Qaeda (Islamabad: Al-Abbas International, 2014). Author interviews with family members in Peshawar and Kohat, 2014. Also Saeed Shah, “Pakistan Detained, Then Released, Many after Bin Laden Raid,” McClatchyDC, June 28, 2011.
73. Syed, The Secrets of Pakistan’s War on Al Qaeda. Also Qadir, Operation Geronimo.
74. Boone, “Najam Sethi.”
75. Press Trust of India, “Osama bin Laden’s Neighbour in Abbottabad Freed after Questioning,” NDTV, May 8, 2011. Also Shah, “Pakistan Detained, Then Released, Many after Bin Laden Raid.”
76. Qadir, Operation Geronimo, 12.
77. Sohaib Athar received so many calls and questions from journalists that he created an FAQ page on his website: “Government organizations have not contacted me yet, either to chat or to try to impose any restrictions on what I say or do. I hope that does not change anytime soon.”
78. General Pasha to the Abbottabad Commission, author copy of report.
79. The rapid increase in attacks on polio workers in Pakistan after the Abbottabad raid was well documented. Pasha’s comments were made to the Abbottabad Commission.
80. Syed Saleem Shahzad, “Al Qaeda Had Warned of Strike,” Asia Times Online, May 27, 2011.
81. Dexter Filkins, “The Journalist and the Spies,” New Yorker, September 19, 2011.
82. Ibid. His story after the Abbottabad raid that alleged senior figures in the Pakistan Army had known the Americans were planning an operation was a typical Shahzad flier, based on rumor and assumption. “Well-placed security sources maintain that the operation in Abbottabad … was without a doubt a joint Pakistan-US effort and that all logistics were arranged inside Pakistan,” he wrote.
83. Author interview with Umar Cheema, Islamabad, June 2014. The attack on him took place in September 2010.
84. Shahzad had agreed to go on the show to promote his new book, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11.
85. Near the town of Mandi Bahauddin. Shahzad’s white Corolla was found six miles away.
86. Filkins, “The Journalist and the Spies.”
87. Ibid.
88. Author interview with Commodore Zafar Iqba, ISI spokesman, Islamabad, 2013.
89. Author interview with Sadiah Ahmed, secretary to the Yemeni ambassador to Pakistan, Islamabad, June 2014.
90. Author interview with a female Federal Investigation Agency officer whose name is withheld at her request, Rawalpindi, June 2014.
91. Osama bin Laden’s mentor Abdullah Azzam had once taught at International Islamic University in Islamabad, and it had links to well-respected universities in Saudi Arabia.
92. Dr. Begum’s CV can be read here: www.iiu.edu.pk/wp-content/uploads/downloads/academics/short_cv/fa/zaitoon_begum.pdf.
93. Author interview with Dr. Zaitoon’s former colleague Quaiseria Alvi, who also accused her of harassing female staff to take their photographs off the university website.
94. Author interview with a member of the Abbottabad Commision, plus interviews with bin Laden family members; also Abbottabad Commission report.
95. Maryam described how she first met Amal in 2002 and moved with her to Swat, and how she had hosted Khalid Shaikh Mohammad before he was arrested in 2003. She talked about the move to Abbottabad and said that she had eventually realized that her husband, Ibrahim, was probably a mujahid and that the “tall Arab” to whom Amal was married was Osama bin Laden. Abbottabad Commission report.
96. Jennifer Musa, Obituaries, Daily Telegraph, January 18, 2008. Also author interview with Ashraf Qazi.
97. Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the Gulf states were all brought into the discussion.
98. Author interviews with Husain Haqqani in May 2015 and August 2016.
99. Ibid.
100. Shaukat Qadir, “Who’s Gunning for Pakistan’s Top Generals?” Al Arabiya English, June 18, 2011.
101. Qadir had previously written hagiographical accounts of how Kayani had “turned the army on its head” after Musharraf’s departure and how he “restored not only the self-respect of soldiers, he restored their respect in the eyes of the citizens.” In a piece he wrote for Al Arabiya after the Abbottabad raid, he stated: “There is a deliberate coordinated effort to undermine the authority of the Pakistan army chief by the US and the US media.”
102. Qadir, Operation Geronimo; also Declan Walsh, “A Personal Quest to Clarify Bin Laden’s Last Days Yeields Vexing Accounts,” New York Times, March 7, 2012.
103. Qadir, Operation Geronimo. “As a general rule spooks can never be fully trusted to disclose all they know,” Qadir continued. “Consequently, I take what they offer but usually with fistfuls of salt, not just a pinch.”
104. The official ISI interrogation team consisted of Brigadier Muhammed Aslam, Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Muhammed Tariq, and Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Khalid Qasim. Brigadier Aslam had been a captain when Qadir commanded his brigade.
105. Qadir, Operation Geronimo. The ISI colonel who searched the house on the night of the raid told Qadir that he had found a closet “filled with a huge variety of medicines,” including a blood-sugar test kit.
106. Ibid. They had worked some more on the Kuwaiti brothers. Qadir claimed that Khalid Shaikh Mohammad had named Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti as Osama’s courier, even though his own interrogation transcripts suggest otherwise. Before being packed off to the Salt Pit, KSM had identified the courier from a photograph that the ISI claimed it had shared with the CIA, something the agency denied. Tracking the Kuwaiti, the ISI had taken “a high powered delegation to the Gulf to confer with intelligence chiefs, but they couldn’t locate him, or they just weren’t trying hard enough.” Qadir also presented a new version of who had led the CIA to the compound, with ISI investigators taking center stage. In 2007, Abrar had become so worried about what to say to the neighbors that he had invented a story about being a money changer from Charsadda, a claim that someone in Abbottabad had reported to the ISI. In mid-2008, Charsadda ISI station had probed the claim and concluded there was no record of a money changer by that name, passing the inquiry back to Aabpara—which instructed ISI Abbottabad to watch the mystery man’s movements. In July 2010, the ISI’s counterterrorism wing supposedly made a request to the CIA for satellite surveillance on the compound. It was this operation and not intercepted phone calls that had ultimately led to the raid, Qadir said, hoping to revive the ISI’s role in it.
107. Ibid. “It would be a favour wouldn’t it; putting
me out of my misery? And that is a wife’s duty.” This account was partially confirmed by bin Laden family members who told the authors that severe tensions existed between Khairiah and other family members who believed that she had either deliberately or inadvertently led the raiding party to Abbottabad.
108. This accusation was widely reported in the Pakistani media after the raid although relatives of Ibrahim’s surviving wife, Maryam, strongly denied it.
109. Author interviews with Shaukat Qadir, Islamabad and Rawalpindi, 2014–2015; also his book, Operation Geronimo.
110. Amal wanted to go home to Yemen. Khairiah and Seham wanted to live in the sprawling bin Laden family compound at Kilometer Seven on the outskirts of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
111. Khairiah, Seham, and Amal described how their husband was “not fond of possessions” and had owned only six pairs of shalwar kameez, a black jacket, two sweaters, and a cowboy hat to “avoid detection from above.” When he was sick he had treated himself with traditional Arab medicine and when he was sluggish he ate an apple and some chocolate. He had not expected an American assault, although he had ordered some trees to be cut down along the compound wall a few weeks before the raid, for fear someone could conceal a camera or listening device in them.
112. Qazi listed unanswered questions that included: “What information were the Iranians able to extract from Hamzah, Khairiah, their family and escorts?” “Did the Iranians maintain some kind of link with Osama through Hamzah or Khairiah?” “What was in the ‘significant dossier’ the Iranians compiled on the family?” “Did they [the Iranians] share any information with the U.S.?” Author interview with Qazi, Islamabad, February 2015.
113. Abbottabad Commission report.
114. Author interviews with Zakariya, Islamabad, February 2012.
115. Author interviews with Abdul Rahman al-Sadeh, Islamabad, February, March, and September 2012.
116. “They were just stupid boys,” said an embassy official who watched them wandering about daily, looking lost and waiting to speak to the ambassador.