The Exile
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47. Osama to Karim, October 18, 2007, ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
48. Before the Waziristan Accord, it must have seemed as if every village had opened up its doors to Taliban and Al Qaeda fugitives, but now local families were reluctant.
49. Two letters. July 17, 2010, ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015. Also June 19, 2010, letter declassified ahead of Anas al-Libi trial, New York, Govt exhibit 421, 10-CR-019 (S-4) (RJD).
50. He added that the appointment of Younis al-Mauritani as chief of external operations had been the wrong choice. Younis was “smart” and “clever,” but he still “needs to grow up and needs to become more mature and get more experience.” Younis’s age was presenting problems, as the veterans in Al Qaeda did not respect him. His dealings with Ilyas Kashmiri had already run into difficulties, with the shadow commander failing to respond to orders.
51. Reuters, “Taliban Hostage Takers Behead Polish Engineer,” Observer (UK), February 8, 2009. During his incarceration in North Waziristan in 2008–2009, the New York Times correspondent David Rohde said that he had come to a simple realization: “After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become … Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world.” David Rohde, “Held by the Taliban,” New York Times, October 17, 2009.
52. Between them, the Taliban and Al Qaeda had killed more than five hundred NATO troops in Afghanistan in recent months.
53. Atiyah to Osama, June 19, 2010. The most popular attacks involved explosives-laden vests designed by Al Qaeda’s tailor in Datta Khel and by others who had been trained by the late bomb maker Abu Khabab. The boys destined to wear them were selected on the basis of ignorance and low intelligence and were indoctrinated at a suicide bombers’ training school in Sararogha, South Waziristan, where Hakimullah’s murderous sidekick Qari Hussain supervised false ideology taught by fighters pretending to be mullahs. Although Hussain liked to boast that he could “turn anyone into a suicide bomber,” many of the human bombs were dispatched while under the influence of drugs. Alongside the colorful murals of lakes and mountains depicting paradise that decorated the walls of the suicide school run by Hussain was an altar and a drainage area, which was used for beheading captured Pakistani soldiers.
54. Atiyah to Osama, July 17, 2010, ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid. General Ahmed Shuja Pasha of the ISI wanted to reach out to Sheikh Osama, although his real intentions were unclear. Hakimullah’s TTP, the Haqqanis, and Dr. al-Zawahiri were all in on it, Atiyah reported.
58. Ibid. Catching wind of the ISI overtures, Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab Province and younger brother of former prime minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, had also got in on the act, telling Hakimullah and his sidekick the suicide bomber trainer Qari Hussain that he was willing to “pay any price” if the TTP promised not to carry out terrorist atrocities in the Punjab.
59. Ibid.
60. Author interview with Fazlur Rehman Khalil, Islamabad, February 2015.
61. Ibid. Khalil was dragged from a mosque in Tarnol on the outskirts of Islamabad, held for five hours, and badly beaten by “unknown assailants” (a well-recognized code for undercover intelligence officers).
62. Ibid. His headquarters was at the Khalid bin Walid madrassa in Shams Colony, Golra. The container story was confirmed to the authors by Islamabad-based journalist Jamal Ismail.
63. The landscape was precarious even for veteran jihad watchers. The previous April, Squadron Leader Khalid Khawaja, a former Pakistan Air Force pilot and an associate of Osama’s from the Peshawar days, an officer with a significant ISI career, had traveled to the Tribal Areas with a second well-known veteran spook, Sultan Amir Tarar, known by his legend Colonel Iman.The two claimed to be acting as consultants for a British-Pakistani filmmaker, Asad Qureshi, who had approached them with a request to film the TTP. Both were accused of being CIA spies and were killed by the Taliban. Author interviews with Asad Qureshi, London, May 2014.
64. Long, undated letter from Osama to Atiyah. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
65. Sheikh Osama also appointed Abu Yahya al-Libi to work on “writing some articles and providing advice” and Azzam the American to take care of technical issues and make sure that they did not make any embarrassing mistakes when it came to criticizing the American political system, something that had happened in the past.
66. “Letter to Zamaray Sahib, Monday 11 Sha’ban.” ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in January 2017.
67. Abrar’s sickness is mentioned in Osama’s letter to Atiyah in January 2011. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
68. Long, undated letter from Osama to Atiyah. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
69. Ibid.
70. Sumaiya to Umm Hamzah (Khairiah, mother of Hamzah), undated. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
71. Osama to “my dear sons Uthman, Muhammad, Hamzah, my wife Umm Hamzah and my grandchildren,” September 26, 2010. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
72. He also sent regards from Seham (Umm Khalid) and Amal (Umm Safiyah) and asked for news about Wafa and her children, still in Iran.
73. Hallabi (Daood) to Khalid, dated August 26, 2010. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
74. Daood to Seham, August 26, 2010. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
75. Rob Crilly, “Pakistani Officials Know Where Osama bin Laden Hiding,” Daily Telegraph, May 11, 2010.
76. General Pasha’s submission to the Abbottabad Commission. Details from the unpublished Abbottabad Commission report, Al Jazeera Investigation Unit, “Document: Pakistan’s Bin Laden Dossier,” Al Jazeera, July 8, 2013, www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/binladenfiles/.
77. Relations between the United States and Pakistan were always “marred by an inconsistent, transactional and reactive paradigm,” he said.
78. General Pasha to the Abbottabad Commission.
79. Author interviews with Wajid Shamsul Hasan, London, 2010–2016.
80. General Pasha to the Abbottabad Commission.
81. Pasha’s backing of Khan’s political aspirations was well known in Pakistan.
82. General Pasha to the Abbottabad Commission. Also author interviews with close former colleagues of General Pasha.
83. Woodward, “Death of Osama bin Laden: Phone Call Pointed U.S. to Compound—and to ‘the Pacer.’ ”
84. General Pasha to the Abbottabad Commission. He claimed that “most of the times [sic] these numbers were silent.”
85. White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Press Briefing by Senior Administration Officials on the Killing of Osama bin Laden,” May 2, 2011, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/05/02/press-briefing-senior-administration-officials-killing-osama-bin-laden.
86. David Usborne, “Revealed: The CIA Mastermind Who Cornered bin Laden,” Independent, July 6, 2011. Intelligence official “John” (and his female colleague, who was almost certainly Gina Bennett) wrote that current thinking had it that Osama might not be in the mountains, as always assumed, but living an urban life closer to Islamabad.
87. Peter Bergen, Manhunt (London: Bodley Head, 2012).
88. Given that almost all of those now working on the operation had friends who
had died in the Camp Chapman attack, he did not need to emphasize what a critical operation this could be.
89. White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Press Briefing by Senior Administration Officials on the Killing of Osama bin Laden.” U.S. government material later shown to Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, the director and screenwriter, respectively, of the film Zero Dark Thirty, also provides useful insights and can be viewed here: nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB410/.
90. From a debate with John McCain at Belmont Arena in Nashville. Quoted in Mark Bowden, “The Hunt for “Geronimo,’ ” Vanity Fair, November 2012.
91. Ibid.
92. Chris McGreal and Declan Walsh, “Pakistan Neuroscientist Given 86 Years for Shooting at US Agents,” Guardian, September 23, 2010.
93. There were numerous cases where kidnappers either offered to exchange prisoners for Aafia or cited her case as their motivation, including the captures of Kayla Mueller, James Foley, Warren Weinstein, Linda Norgrove, and the oil workers at the Amenas facility in Algeria.
94. From Maryam interview in the Abbottabad Commission report and Bergen, Manhunt.
95. Umm Saad to Umm Khalid, September 21, 2010. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
96. Undated letter from Sarah to Seham. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
97. A fuller list of these items is contained in a letter from Hamzah to his father dated January 8, 2011. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
98. Seham to Umm Saad (Sarah), undated. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
99. Azaz Syed, The Secrets of Pakistan’s War on Al-Qaeda (Islamabad: Al-Abbas International, 2014).
100. Nicholas Schmidle, “Getting Bin Laden,” New Yorker, August 8, 2011.
101. General Pasha identifies Iqbal as a probable CIA recruit in his submission to the Abbottabad Commission.
102. This allegedly took place at a Military Intelligence (MI) safe house in Gulfraz, Rawalpindi. Author interviews with Azaz Syed, Islamabad, 2013–2015, and Husain Haqqani, Washington, D.C., 2014–2016.
103. Ibid. He was introduced by his successor at Military Intelligence, who hoped for a job from Iqbal when his military career ran out of steam.
104. Ibid.
105. Abbottabad Commission report; Kamran Shafi, “Of Clouseaus and ‘Noise-Controlled Vehicles,’ ” Express Tribune (Pakistan), July 11, 2013.
106. Author interview with Azaz Syed.
107. Jason Burke and Saeed Shah, “Osama bin Laden: Family Guy with Three Wives, Nine Children and a Cow to Keep,” Guardian, May 6, 2011.
108. Abbottabad Commission report.
109. This is something that nurse Amna and district health worker Shaheena also heard when running the vaccination campaign with Dr. Afridi. See Abbottabad Commission report.
110. This is from Shamraiz to Shaukat Qadir, in his book Operation Geronimo: The Betrayal and Execution of Osama bin Laden and Its Aftermath (Islamabad: HA Publications, 2012).
111. The figure was estimated to be between five feet nine inches and six feet eight inches tall. Bergen, Manhunt.
112. Osama to Shaykh Mahmud, September 26, 2010, ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015. The Sheikh was most concerned about Khairiah, who was still not with him. “Keep her in a safe location,” he requested.
113. Don Rassler, et al., “Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Laden Sidelined?” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, May 3, 2012, see letter number SOCOM-21012-0000015-HT.
114. The CIA mistakenly reported that Atiyah had been killed on October 9, 2010.
115. Rassler, et al., “Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Laden Sidelined?” SOCOM-21012-0000015-HT. Atiyah was to avoid moving by car, Osama wrote, “and make sure to keep a rigid hierarchy among the brothers, background checking new brothers who are all to swear the bayat, and only use trusted brothers to send messages.” The Pakistani “supporters” should also plant trees to give cover from the “spying aircrafts.”
116. Ibid.
117. Osama to Mullah Omar, dated September 24, 2010. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
118. Atiyah to Osama, November 24, 2010. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in May 2015.
119. Details of their journey from the border comes from “Letter to sons Uthman and Muhammad,” January 7, 2011. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in January 2017.
120. A few months earlier and under pressure, Ibrahim had allowed Rehma to take lessons from Osama’s daughter Sumaiya in the main house. When Rehma asked her father who was the “uncle” who lived upstairs and never went out, he had invented a story that the “uncle” was too poor to buy anything. From then they had referred to him as miskeen kaka, or “poor uncle.” Now Ibrahim bought new locks for the metal security doors that separated the ground floor from upstairs.
121. Maryam described this incident in her submission to the Abbottabad Commission, and further details come from author interviews with Maryam’s relatives.
122. See Osama’s letters to the brothers, January 2011. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
123. Osama to Khairiah, undated. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
124. Ibid. He explains that he and the companions met again on January 15, 2011, and agreed in writing to a nine-month notice period. The family would move after the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
125. Author interviews with bin Laden family members.
126. Seham to Karima’s mother, November 5, 2010. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016. “This has been going on now for three years,” Seham observed, mournfully. “I’m afraid that losing too much time waiting may result in missing the train for both of them.”
127. Osama to Khairiah, undated. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
128. Ibid. Letter continues: “… justifying why you were the first in my family to be released.”
129. David Headley, evidence to the National Investigation Agency, Government of India. Azaz Syed also claimed that Osama met Ilyas Kashmiri in Haripur.
130. This meeting was described by militants captured alive after the general headquarters raid in October 2009. A report was put together and circulated to all civilian and military intelligence agencies in Pakistan, as well as security officials at the interior ministry and U.S. counterterrorism officials. It was reported in the Daily Times, Lahore, in May 2010. See Carlotta Gall, The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001–2014 (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), 253.
131. In a further twist, Fazlur Rehan Khalil was brought in by the army to negotiate with the hostage takers, giving further evidence of his proximity to the Pakistani security services.
132. M. Ilyas Khan, “Osama bin Laden: The Night He Came for Dinner,” BBC News, Islamabad, May 2, 2012.
133. Osama to Atiyah, undated letter. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
134. Bowden, “The Hunt for ‘Geronimo.’ ”
135. Bergen, Manhunt; and Mark Bowden, The Finish (New York: Grove Press, 2012).
136. This was confirmed by Dr. Mohammed Suleman, a close neighbor, to the Abbottabad Commission.
CHAPTER TEN
1. Phil Bronstein, “The Shooter,” Esquire, March 2013.
2. In a letter to Ibrahim dated January 20, 2011, Osama said he was ill himself. Recovered from Abbottabad, declassified and released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence [hereafter ODNI] in May 2015, www.dni.gov/index.php/resources/bin-laden-bookshelf. In this letter, Ibrahim is addressed as Abu Khalid.
3. Surat al-Ma’idah (verse 2).
4. Osama to Abu Mohammed (Abrar) and A
bu Khalid (Ibrahim), January 14, 2011. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016. Also another letter from Osama to “my two noble brothers,” January 14, 2011, ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
5. Osama to Atiyah, undated letter. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016. Also “Letter to sons Uthman and Muhammad,” January 7, 2011. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in January 2017.
6. Osama letter to Atiyah dated April 26, 2011. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016. Osama was displeased with Atiyah, who, in a bid to speed up resolution of the “special issue,” had met with a previously untested brother. “The incident was contradictory to the security precautions that I asked you to implement,” said Osama.
7. Osama to Mohammed Aslam, January 29, 2011. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
8. Ibid.
9. Seham to Umm Abd al-Rahman (mother of Karima), April 26, 2011. ODNI documents, Abbottabad, released in March 2016.
10. Mark Bowden, “The Hunt for ‘Geronimo,’ ” Vanity Fair, November 2012; and Nicholas Schmidle, “Getting Bin Laden,” New Yorker, August 8, 2011.
11. Schmidle, “Getting Bin Laden.”
12. In 2012, the U.S. government allowed General Pasha and the ISI to claim diplomatic immunity and the case collapsed. “ISI, Pasha and Taj Enjoy Immunity in 26/11 NY Court Case: US Gov,” Oneindia News, December 20, 2012.