A secret Pakistani report leaked online on Monday provides a series of stunning revelations about the life and death of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, the long-time Al-Qaeda leader responsible for the 9/11 attacks against the United States in 2001.
The report, placed online by the Al Jazeera news network, recounts the testimony of more than 200 witnesses including bin Laden's family members. On one occasion during 2002 or 2003, bin Laden was almost caught while headed to a market with his security guard Ibrahim al-Kuwaiti and the guard's wife Maryam. The car he was riding in - it's unclear who was driving - was pulled over for speeding, but bin Laden 'quickly settled the matter,' according to Maryam's testimony, and the al-Qaeda leader was once again off and running.
One of bin Laden's relatives said 'The Shaikh,' as he was known, often 'wore a cowboy hat to avoid detection from above' by overhead U.S. drones, and that 'a complete collapse of local governance' allowed him to hide inside the country for six years before U.S. President Barack Obama gave the order to have him killed in a Navy SEAL raid.
That 'kill mission,' Pakistan's official inquiry declared, was 'a criminal act of murder which was condemned by a number of international lawyers and human rights organizations. Due process was deliberately denied the victims,' the commissioners wrote - referring to bin Laden as a victim - 'and their killing was explicitly ordered by the President of the US.'The US Navy SEALs raid that killed the al Qaida founder in the town of Abbottabad outraged Pakistani officials because they were not told about it beforehand. US officials have said they kept Pakistan in the dark because they were worried that bin Laden would be tipped off. The fact that the compound where bin Laden was hiding was located only about half a mile from Pakistan's equivalent of West Point led many in the US to suspect Pakistani officials of aiding him, although Washington never found evidence to back that up.
The report said it also found no evidence that current or former Pakistani officials helped bin Laden hide, although it could not rule it out completely.
It said very little is known about the network of support that bin Laden enjoyed in Pakistan, other than the group of family and backers that lived with him in Abbottabad. The report attacked all levels of government, including the powerful army and intelligence services, for failing to detect the terror leader as he lived in six different places in Pakistan over nine years. To summarise, negligence and incompetence to a greater or lesser degree at almost all levels of government are clear,' said the report, which was based on testimony from more than 200 witnesses, official documents and site visits. The criticism of the army and intelligence services was noteworthy in a country where officials often steer clear of taking these powerful organisations to task. The commission recommended the government make the report public for fear it would be ignored or suppressed, but that never happened, even though it was completed months ago. The report said it was shocking that nobody in the Pakistani government discovered bin Laden while he was living in Abbottabad for six years. He was in a compound described as 'hardly normal,' because it was isolated from homes around it, had very high walls and was protected by barbed wire.
'The extent of incompetence, to put it mildly, was astounding, if not unbelievable,' the report said. Among the dozen of new details in the report is the revelation that bin Laden and his supporters waited to build an unauthorized third story on the compound until after a devastating earthquake hit Pakistan in 2005. According to an account given to the Abbottabad Commission by his wives, with whom he was able to father four children while he was on the run, he often liked to have an apple and a piece of chocolate when he was feeling weak. The Guardian reports that the terror leader actively encouraged his grandchildren to compete over who could grow the best vegetables. It also said the children of one of his Pakistani couriers knew him as 'poor uncle'.
The child had reportedly asked why he never went out shopping, and was told he was too poor to buy anything.
Of the raid itself, the commission wrote that bin Laden and his youngest wife Amal were together in the bedroom when the U.S. helicopters first arrived. After the evening meal and prayer,' the account reads, 'Amal and the Shaikh retired for the night. Shortly past midnight, they were awakened by the noise of what at first sounded like a storm.'
It wasn't a cloudburst. Minutes later, bin Laden lay dead on the floor - From the Daily Mail Online of the United Kingdom .
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