A lot earlier than the American commandos killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, the US had advised Pakistan the dreaded al-Qaeda chief was hiding of their nation. The surprising revelation, forward of the overall elections in Pakistan on February 8, was made by former Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, throughout an interview with Geo Information.
“Condoleezza Rice (former US Secretary of State) had visited Pakistan and her apprehensions have been that he (bin Laden) was in Pakistan,” Gilani stated in the course of the interview.
Rice visited Pakistan 4 instances whereas she served because the Secretary of State, whereas Gilani served as Pakistan’s Prime Minister from 2008 until 2012.
In keeping with Gilani, Rice met him within the first week of December 2008, throughout a shock go to to Islamabad, quickly after the Mumbai terror assaults.
“When she shared that, I stated it was disinformation,” Gilani advised Geo Information, on being requested about his response to Rice.
Additional, Gilani stated it was an “intelligence failure of the world”, on being requested whether or not discovering bin Laden within the Pakistani garrison metropolis of Abbottabad got here as a shock later.
Gilani was additionally requested if the data, by Rice, was conveyed to him by the US Central Intelligence Company (CIA).
“If they’d any proof they need to have given it to us. We might have helped them as a result of we have been in opposition to terrorism, and we have been preventing a battle in opposition to terrorism and misplaced many valuable lives of army males and civilians who have been martyred, and we additionally misplaced billions of {dollars},” Gilani stated.
About his speech in Pakistan’s Nationwide Meeting, questioning bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan, the previous Prime Minister stated Pakistan’s motive was to cease the worldwide media as a result of bin Laden was not a Pakistani citizen and got here from overseas.
(Gilani, whereas addressing Pakistan’s Nationwide Meeting in 2011, after bin Laden’s killing, had emphatically denied any information of the al-Qaeda chief hiding in his nation. He had begun his speech on the historical past of Pakistan and transitioned into factors on how Pakistan can’t be held answerable for al Qaeda’s actions. He concluded with the Pakistan-US relations and blamed the media for the spin on feedback made about Pakistan’s function).
Responding to a query about whether or not he was given a whole image by Pakistan’s spy company, Inter-Companies Intelligence (ISI), relating to bin Laden or if your entire story was not shared with him, Gilani stated that he “used to get briefings, and so they have been very clear.”
Osama bin Laden was a Saudi-born Islamic dissident and terrorist chief who was the founder and first common emir of al-Qaeda from 1988 till he died in 2011. His organisation is designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations Safety Council, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the European Union, and varied different international locations.
He’s most generally referred to as the mastermind of the September 11 assaults in the US.
Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on 2 Could 2011, by a United States army particular operations unit.
The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was ordered by the then United States President Barack Obama and was carried out as a US CIA operation by a workforce of United States Navy SEALs from the US Naval Particular Warfare Growth Group.
