WASHINGTON (Staff Report) – It has been five years now, since United States Navy Seals crossed into Pakistan violating international boundary and killed world’s most wanted terrorist Usama bin Ladin at his compound located in Abbottabad.
To mark the fifth anniversary of the landmark secret mission, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) took it to micro-blogging website twitter to share “live events” of Abbottabad raid as if it was happening in 2016.
Here are the major events as they took place:
1:25 pm EDT-@POTUS, DCIA Panetta, & JSOC commander Admiral McRaven approve execution of op in Abbottabad.#UBLRaid pic.twitter.com/YhvuJVrMVc
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
1:51 pm EDT – Helicopters depart from Afghanistan for compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
3:30 pm EDT – 2 helicopters descend on compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. 1 crashes, but assault continues without delay or injury#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
3:30 pm EDT – @POTUS watches situation on ground in Abbottabad live in Situation Room#UBLRaid pic.twitter.com/59KPF7eUTr
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
3:39 pm EDT – Usama Bin Ladin found on third floor and killed#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
3:39 pm – 4:10 pm EDT – Team retrieves large quantity of materials from compound for intel analysis#UBLRaidhttps://t.co/yl1FjRA0qk
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
3:53 pm EDT – @POTUS receives tentative confirmation of positive identification of Usama Bin Ladin#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
4:05 pm EDT – First helicopter leaves the area to go back to Afghanistan#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
4:08 pm EDT – Assault Team destroys crashed helicopter#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
4:10 pm EDT — Backup helicopter picks up remaining team members & materials & leaves Abbottabad#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
5:53 pm EDT – Helicopters return to Afghanistan where Admiral McRaven greets team#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
7:01 pm EDT – @POTUS receives confirmation of high probability of positive identification of Usama Bin Ladin#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
Daring #UBLRaid was an IC team effort & in close collaboration with our military partners.https://t.co/rklCIRLlgF pic.twitter.com/xZObdGeqPR
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
Prior to the Abbottabad Operation twets, CIA’s twitter account announced:
To mark the 5th anniversary of the Usama Bin Ladin operation in Abbottabad we will tweet the raid as if it were happening today.#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
Join us beginning at 1:25 p.m. EDT today as we tweet the #UBLRaid as if it were happening today. pic.twitter.com/x8EBpW571f
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
And CIA also told the world that how significant this raid was:
Death of Usama Bin Ladin marked significant victory in US-led campaign to disrupt, dismantle, & defeat al-Qa`ida.#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
Assault team trained on an exact life-size replica of compound w movable walls to prep for any internal layout they might encounter#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
Late 2010, intel linked a courier to compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Compound & main house had security features unusual for area#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
Features
High walls/barbed wire
Double entry gates
No internet/phone connection
Trash burned not collected#UBLRaid pic.twitter.com/KyPIFPxA4d— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
Success of mission was culmination of years of complex, thorough & highly advanced intel ops & analyses led by CIA w support of IC.#UBLRaid
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
#OTD 2011: US military raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan killed Usama Bin Ladin.#UBLRaidhttps://t.co/rklCIS2W8d pic.twitter.com/o2Ym4vM7ri
— CIA (@CIA) May 1, 2016
Most of the details shared by CIA are not new and have been published in media reports previously. However the time of every key event of Abbottabad Operation was something new for people around the globe.
On the other hand, even after five years, Pakistan is unsuccessful to identify whether Pakistani military or intelligence service had been coordinating with CIA during the May 2 assault. Officials still maintain that Pakistan was not informed prior to the raid, however investigative journalist Seymour Hersh maintains that Pakistan’s intelligence officials had assisted CIA to locate Usama bin Laden in Abbottabad.
Mr Hersh also rejected the suggestion that Usama bin Laden was living in his own hideout and was free to move around in Abbottabad. UBL was an ISI prisoner and never moved except under their supervision, he said in his recently published book.
“The most blatant lie was that Pakistan’s two most senior military leaders – (retired) Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani (who was chief of the army staff at the time), and Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director general of the ISI – were never informed of the US mission,” writes Mr Hersh.
“In Aug 2010 a former senior Pakistani intelligence officer approached Jonathan Bank, the then CIA’s station chief at the US embassy in Islamabad. He offered to tell the CIA where to find (Osama) bin Laden in return for the reward that Washington had offered in 2001.”
The former intelligence official, Mr Hersh said, was a military man who was now living in Washington and working for the CIA as a consultant. “I cannot tell you more about him because it would not be appropriate.”
Pakistan also formed an inquiry commission in 2011, to identify those responsible of the air raid: which was a violation of Pakistan’s international border. The commission’s report yet remains to be published officially. But a leaked report was brought out by Al Jazeera three years ago.
The leaked report, reportedly, charged the military and the government with “gross incompetence” leading to “collective failures” that firstly allowed Bin Laden to reside in Pakistan unnoticed, and later US conducted air raid to kill him while Pakistan AIr Force failed to respond to the border violation effectively.
Former ISI chief General (retd) Ziaud Din Butt asserted that former president and the then COAS Pervez Musharraf was aware of bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, and that former Intelligence Bureau (IB) official Ijaz Shah arranged a bungalow for al-Qaeda head, upon Musharraf’s instructions. Butt maintained that Ijaz Shah was responsible to shelter the world’s most wanted terrorist in Pakistan, in an interview with NY Times.
Following the interview, the NY Times further claimed that Lt General (retired) Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who was Director General ISI at the time of OBL raid, was also aware of OBL’s presence in the neighbourhood of country’s military training institute.
