John Brennan says the Jewish state provided some of the information whichled to the operation that brought embarrassment to Islamabad.
Pakistanis now have another thing to ponder. As it turns out, Israeliagents helped the United States, to a certain extent, in tracking downOsama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda who carried out the deadly 9/11attacks.
Bin Laden was killed in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad in a joint USmilitary-CIA operation in 2011. His killing led to a deep introspection inIslamabad which denied knowing the whereabouts of America’s thenmost-wanted terrorist.
The fact that Bin Laden was living in a massive house located close to thePakistan military’s main academy, fuelled anger both at home and abroad.The South Asian country itself had lost tens of thousands of people toterrorist attacks.
In a wide ranging interviewlinkwiththe *Haaretz*, former CIA chief John Brennan said that while overall it wasa US-led operation, the Jewish state provided some assistance in locatingBin Laden.
Years of effort went into preparing the night raid, “And the thousands ofbits of pieces of intelligence do include some which were provided by theIsraelis as a result of their intelligence operations,” he said.
A Pakistani commission created to look into the incident, which it calledthe “greatest humiliating” since the secession of its eastern wing in the1971 war, underscored a major failure on the part of its vauntedintelligence apparatus.
US Navy Seals flew from neighbouring Afghanistan in helicopters in theearly hours of May 2, 2011, and over the next 40 minutes killed Bin Ladenand whisked his body away. By the time Pakistani jets scrambled, the USsoldiers had already crossed the border.
It remains one of the most glaring episodes of intelligence failures, asBin Laden remained in Pakistan for nearly a decade, moving betweendifferent cities. The compound where he was killed was built in an unusualway, its high walls, barbed wires and lack of visitors or absence of anycars made it suspect, yet no officials raised any red flags, the commissionnoted link.
Pakistan arrested and jailed Shakil Afridi, a doctor who helped the CIAcollect blood samples from Bin Laden’s family members under the garb of animmunisation campaign.
But no one from the government or security establishment has ever beenpublicly punished for the intelligence failure.
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