The Exile

by Adrian Levy

  Although he was keen for Atiyah to get the conversation started as soon as possible, he advised him to be cautious in his dealings with Al Jazeera. The last person to interview Sheikh Saeed had been the station’s Pakistan bureau chief, Ahmad Zaidan and, although Osama liked Zaidan, he wondered whether the reporter had inadvertently led the CIA to the financier, with some “tracking chip” placed inside his camera or laptop.65

  August 10, 2010, Ramadan Eve, Bilal Town, Abbottabad

  It was a truly auspicious day. Osama at last received news that Khairiah, his favorite wife, had, after eight years, “got out of the infidel’s fist” in Tehran. Even more uplifting was to hear that she had not gone to Syria or Qatar but was coming his way. Quds Force agents had flown her to Zahidan and then driven her to the Pakistan border. But fearful of what had happened to Saad, she was refusing to cross until she received some confirmation from her husband or an Al Qaeda representative that others who had been set free by the same route were still alive. Abu Uthman, Al Qaeda’s Pakistan’s operations chief, was suggesting they record a video “showing the released brothers or some of them” to prove that she was not walking into a trap.66

  Immediately, Osama wrote to assure her she would be safe inside Pakistan. “It comforts me to hear your news, which I have waited and longed for.” She should cross with “the mediator” and then go with him to Quetta, where “supporters” would shelter her until it was safe to come to Abbottabad. Privately, he worried about these last-minute changes instigated by Tehran, and when he told Ibrahim to make preparations for Khairiah’s unexpected arrival, Osama’s companion dug in his heels.

  Osama wrote about the showdown to Atiyah. Unable to cope with the large number of Arabs they were already protecting, and concerned that the new arrival might have been bugged, Ibrahim and Abrar had resigned. Abrar had suffered a nervous breakdown and Ibrahim was also sick; the corner annex where he, Maryam, and four children lived was dank and cramped.67 He was permanently stressed by the superhuman efforts required to keep his family quiet and out of the main courtyard.

  The situation between the two families was now so tense that Osama—who rarely stopped to consider others—sent orders for Atiyah to start looking for replacements.

  What Osama wanted Atiyah to find was a Pakistani citizen with an ID card, preferably someone who was of Pashtun descent and who would be willing to give up everything to become the new factotum.68 He was clear about what type of person he preferred. The candidate should be “well mannered, quiet, patient, aware and knowledgeable of the enemy tricks” and willing to stay away from his family for as long as the job demanded it. The right person would have to be “tested until there is no doubt,” have no visible criminal or jihadi record, and be smart enough in his intellect and appearance that he could rent houses and carry out a mass of secretarial duties.

  But it was not as if Atiyah, who himself was looking to quit, could place an ad on some Al Qaeda bulletin board or pin a note to shop counters in Miram Shah or Mir Ali. However, Osama seemed not to care. “Inform me within two months,” he demanded, revealing that “the notice that my companion has given me is limited.” If they did not move quickly, he was sure that Ibrahim and Abrar would walk, leaving the bin Ladens to fend for themselves.

  August 15, 2010, Bilal Town, Abbottabad

  Osama and Ibrahim met again to work out their differences. There was some movement. Khairiah could come to Abbottabad, Ibrahim suggested, seeming to relent a little, but only if her possessions were thoroughly inspected for bugs and if Osama’s son Khalid left first. One in and one out. That was the rule he had previously imposed. Osama needed to think fast. Khalid had been agitating to go to Waziristan to marry his long-term fiancée Karima and join Atiyah. But Osama could not decide whether it was worth risking a son, who transcribed all of his work and was his link to the outside world, to win back a wife whose unexpected arrival in Pakistan he, too, was starting to worry about.

  He sent more instructions to Atiyah: Khairiah should head north into Waziristan, traveling incognito, while they observed her from afar to see if she was being tailed. They should presume that “the adversaries,” meaning the CIA, listened to all Iranian government chatter concerning bin Laden’s family—or had been covertly consulted by Tehran—and would be following their movements.

  Khairiah should jettison everything she had brought with her, even her clothes, in case the Iranians had implanted tracking devices for their American clients. And then there was the added risk the Pakistanis might pick up on her arrival in the country. “If the intelligence commander in the area is aware, he will think that they are headed to me and will survey them to find the place that they will settle in,” Osama wrote.69

  To confuse the watchers, he recommended that his wife should come via the Kohat Tunnel—using the same car-switching trick that had worked with the grandchildren—and then head for Peshawar, where she would be met by Ibrahim’s trusted Peshawar representative, Mohammed Aslam. If the coast remained clear, Khalid could fetch her before leaving for Waziristan.

  An excited Sumaiya, the youngest of Seham’s daughters, wrote to the aunt she missed: “My heart is filled with joy for the happy news for which we have been waiting for many years.”70 Had Khairiah heard about the tragic deaths in Waziristan—Saad by drone and Khadija in childbirth? “I pray to God Almighty to have mercy [and] accept them with the martyrs and to gather them in the highest paradise,” Sumaiya wrote.

  She shared happier news about Khadija’s children. After two years in Abbottabad they had come to regard Miriam as their mother. In fact, “the only mother Fatima [the youngest] knows is Miriam.” The children were now all mixed up with Amal’s, whose second daughter, Aasia, was only a few months younger than her niece Aisha. Amal’s son Ibrahim was a few months older than his nephew Osama. Amal’s youngest daughter, Zainab, was a few months older than Fatima. The baby of the family, born to Osama and Amal in 2008, was Hussein.

  Turning to the siblings still in Tehran, Sumaiya asked for news of Saad’s widow, Wafa, and her children. How were they coping? What about Iman and Ladin, who she had heard had been freed? “Also, tell me about my brother Hamzah, and Maryam [his wife] and their children.” Every night since her aunt Najwa had left in September 2001, Sumaiya had prayed that they would all be reunited, and now that day was almost upon them.

  In his next letter to Osama, Atiyah sent news that Hamzah, too, had left the Tourist Complex. Osama wrote to his son immediately: “We are longing to meet you and hear your news. We are getting ready in upcoming days to receive Umm Hamzah [Khairiah] over here, with God’s permission.”71

  After so many years of stasis, things were moving fast—a little too fast, Osama thought. He sent detailed instructions for Khairiah to follow on her journey: “Leave everything behind, including clothes, books, everything she had in Iran … everything that a needle might possibly penetrate.” She should also be checked out by a doctor and a dentist. Khalid had been doing some research and discovered that it was possible to plant a bug under a person’s skin or inside their mouth without them knowing.

  He issued new instructions for Hamzah. If his son was released and brought to the Iran-Pakistan border as his mother had been, then he, too, should enter Pakistan. However, due to the “situation”—code for Ibrahim’s threat of resignation—he could not come to Abbottabad but should head for Mir Ali, where his mother, Khairiah, was already staying with Daood, the widower of Khadija bin Laden.

  There was room in Daood’s compound for Hamzah and his family, too. Daood would take care of their security and Atiyah their finances, as he had access to the Sheikh’s personal accounts.72 Two sums had been set aside: €10,500 and $10,000.73 Khairiah, Hamzah’s wife Maryam, and her two children would find Sarah, Daood’s second wife, most welcoming, Osama wrote. Since Khadija’s death he had come to regard Sarah as a daughter, too.

  But staying in Mir Ali had its own associated risks. A few days back they had received a letter from Daood, sending hap
py Ramadan greetings.74 In it, he had mentioned a terrifying dream that the family initially puzzled over, not knowing if it had been real or just a rhetorical flourish to entertain the children. “I saw that I had been chased by a huge black snake,” Daood had written them. “Next thing I was grabbing its head. I opened its mouth and I saw as if all the teeth had shattered.”

  In a separate letter to Khalid, Daood revealed that he had just survived a double-tap drone strike in which several supporters were killed, and then their family members, too, when they came to evacuate the injured and dead. Clearly shaken, Daood told Khalid: “My brother was in front of me in a car with three others. Another car came ahead of them. Both cars stopped and the passengers were talking. They were about 400 meters ahead of me. The air strike started and they were killed.”

  Daood knew the risks he was taking by staying in Waziristan and he told Khalid that he believed spies living along the Datta Khel–Miram Shah road had been spray-painting Al Qaeda vehicles with invisible ink that could only be seen by the machays in the sky.

  Back in his media suite, Osama was concerned about leaving his wife and son in the kill zone. But he was more worried that until she had been checked over, Khairah might inadvertently lead the enemy to his door.

  He made a difficult decision. He wrote again to his wife, saying that he had no choice but to advise her to remain for now at Sarah’s compound, in the strike zone of Waziristan. He had to keep them away from Abbottabad.

  August 2010, Aabpara, Islamabad, Pakistan

  Hillary Clinton, the U.S. secretary of state, had been steadily increasing the pressure on Pakistan to locate Osama bin Laden since the beginning of the year. In May 2010, shortly after the arrest of Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, she made her strongest statement yet: “I believe that somewhere in this government are people who know where Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda is … and we expect more co-operation to help us bring to justice, capture or kill those who attacked us on 9/11,” she said.75

  General Pasha, whose agents were engaged in secret talks with Al Qaeda, swatted aside Clinton’s threats. The ISI had already helped America hunt down hundreds of Al Qaeda targets, he said, sloughing “blood, sweat and time.” He was sick and tired of being harangued by what he described as Washington’s “psychological warfare.” Had Clinton caught a whisper about the ISI cease-fire overtures? he wondered as he composed a vague response to her complaints.76

  Before becoming director general of the ISI, Pasha had described attacks by foreign intelligence agencies as a “compliment to our achievements.” But now that he had been in the hot seat for two years he doubted there could ever be trust between the CIA and ISI. As far as he was concerned, America nakedly expressed its national interest, projecting itself through Hollywood movies (which rewrote the outcomes of wars it lost), while Pakistan dissembled so it could secretly pursue its own course. The United States and Pakistan would rub along, but theirs would always be a fraught relationship enriched only by occasional overlapping interests.77

  One memorable conversation with a U.S. intelligence official had underscored how each nation regarded the other. “You are so cheap,” the official told Pasha, laughing. “We can buy you with a visa, with a visit to the US, even with a dinner … we can buy anyone.”78

  Pasha had told friends, “We will take anything and rarely respond.” Like most senior army officers, he blamed Pakistan woes on corrupt, low-grade governance rather than military incompetence. “The thinking process [is] nonexistent,” he said of the Zardari administration. In government circles it was common knowledge that the president did not like to read official documents and instead deployed aides to recite them to him.79

  Pasha had only once briefed Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani and had never gone back.80 At the time of Pasha’s appointment, Gilani had been attempting to put the ISI under the authority of the interior ministry, giving civilians control of the spies for the first time in the history of the ISI—a bid that failed.

  Pasha believed there was “elite complacency, lack of capacity, inadequate knowledge and wrong attitudes” and apathy at every level, in every sector of national life. Society was “deeply penetrated.” The media was “practically bought up.” Nearly “everyone of our elite was purchasable.” Accordingly, “we are a failing state if we are not yet a failed state,” he railed as he quietly coached cricketer turned politician Imran Khan, telling him he was “a future prime minister.”81

  Duplicity was everywhere. Pasha was especially aggrieved by America’s army of undercover operatives, people who gave only vague explanations and incomplete information when they demanded visas at the Pakistani embassy in Washington, and then had the cheek to complain of ISI harassment when they arrived. His country was “crawling with foreigners all over the place acting as the eyes and ears of foreign intelligence services.”82 Not to mention the unilateral drone strikes, which had killed thousands of civilians.

  For that Pasha blamed former president Musharraf, who “had caved in too easily to American demands.” Someone had to say: “Enough was enough.”

  August 2010, Washington, D.C.

  According to the official U.S. story, the CIA had known that Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti was Ibrahim Saeed Ahmad for three years. They also had a rough idea of where he operated. But not much more until a sister agency picked up a phone call Ibrahim received from an old friend in the Persian Gulf during a random sweep.

  “We’ve missed you,” said the friend. “Where have you been?”

  “I’m back with the people I was with before,” Ibrahim replied, his distinct lisp identifying him.

  There was a pause in the conversation as the caller mulled over the meaning. “May God facilitate,” he said finally, understanding that Ibrahim was back working with Osama.83

  After analyzing this conversation, the CIA began to focus even more closely on Ibrahim, trying to scoop up his signal when he reached the usual calling points at Hassan Abdal, Mansehra, or Peshawar. It could only be locked on to for a few seconds at a time, enabling analysts to record the numbers Ibrahim dialed but not to fix his position.

  More ears were needed. A decision was taken to partially involve the ISI. Four numbers were shared—Ibrahim’s, his brother Abrar’s, Ibrahim’s wife Maryam’s, and Abrar’s wife Bushra’s. The CIA deliberately did not tell the ISI to whom they would be listening. Given that the numbers were often switched off and that the team of officers whose job it was to monitor cell phone calls across the country consisted of only eighteen people, the ISI did not eavesdrop as often as it should.84

  However, in late August 2010, according to the official U.S. version of events, there was a stroke of luck. A signal from Ibrahim’s phone enabled a CIA asset working in Pakistan to lock on to a white Suzuki Potohar jeep as it made its way through Peshawar. The operative rang it through, excited. The jeep was easy to follow as it had a distinctive rhino symbol on its spare tire cover.

  The news brought more services online. The National Security Agency’s spatial and digital net, and CIA informants on the ground, tracked the jeep two hours east to a large compound in Abbottabad, at which point all intelligence sharing with Pasha’s men was switched off.

  The CIA reported that the Abbottabad compound was prosaic but also peculiar: it was eight times larger than any other home in the area and sat in the middle of a large plot of private land.85 Despite the obvious wealth of the occupants, who had been there for about five years, there were no phone or Internet connections. They never came out and they burned all their rubbish inside. In a breach of local planning regulations, parts of the perimeter wall were eighteen feet high and topped with another two feet of barbed wire. The outside windows were tiny and mirrored. And a seven-foot privacy screen obscured a view into the second floor—the only part of the house visible from the street.

  On the other hand, the compound was less than a mile away from Pakistan’s premier military academy—making it a bold location for a hideaway. There were no guards or security came
ras, which surely there would be if Osama was inside. There was also a dog, which was surprising in a strict Muslim household.

  In late August, a female analyst from the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center (CTC) briefed director Leon Panetta in an e-mail: “Closing In on Usama [sic] bin Laden’s Courier.”86 In a follow-up meeting with CTC officers, Panetta was told: “We’ve been tracking suspected couriers, people who’ve got historical ties to bin Laden, and we tracked them back to a place that looks like a fortress.”87

  The Abbottabad compound had been “custom built,” the analysts said.

  Panetta gave permission for a deeper investigation. “I want every possible operational avenue explored to get inside the compound,” he said.88

  September 2010, White House, Washington, D.C.

  Leon Panetta briefed President Obama and showed him NSA overheads of the compound: “Maybe, just maybe, bin Laden might be there …”89

  During his 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama had told supporters that if he ever got Osama bin Laden in his sights and the “Pakistani government [were] unable, or unwilling” to take him out, he would be willing to act alone. “We will kill bin Laden. We will crush Al Qaeda,” Obama had said.90

  Now that he had been presented with what was described by the CIA briefers as “the best lead that we have seen since Tora Bora,” he asked for more solid proof.91

  Speaking later, Obama recalled: “My feeling at the time was interested, but cautious.” He did not want a rerun of the Aafia Siddiqui fiasco, which had finally ended with a New York court sentencing her to eighty-six years in prison amid cries that she had been badly mistreated by the U.S. military and then setup.92 Despite the court’s decision, questions about what had really happened to Aafia during the years of secret detention and then in a Ghazni police station refused to go away, and her sentencing only served to confirm her cult status among jihadists. Her case would be cited as the main reason behind several subsequent high-profile kidnappings of Western aid workers, oil company employees, and journalists in Pakistan, Algeria, and Syria.93