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India-Pakistan
Pakistan has bin Laden wife, children in custody
2011-05-04
[Emirates 24/7] A senior Pak intelligence official said one of the late Osama bin Laden's
... who is now among the dear departed, though not among the dearest...
daughters had seen her father being rubbed out by US forces, and was one of about 10 relatives of the al Qaeda leader in jug pending interrogation.

The official, who declined to be identified, said the daughter, aged 12 or 13, was one of the people who had confirmed that the criminal mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks had been killed by US commandos in a raid early on Monday.

The relatives -- one of bin Laden's wives and up to eight children -- will be interrogated and then probably turned over to their countries of origin, and not the United States, in accordance with Pak law, he said.

The official said the wife and children were left behind after an American transport helicopter, possibly an MH-60 Sea Hawk, was abandoned because of mechanical problems.

He said there was not enough room for the group on the other helicopters, which were transporting bin Laden's body, other male captives and the commandos.

A small US strike team dropped by helicopter to bin Laden's hide-out in Abbottabad, near the Pak capital Islamabad, and shot him dead.

The revelation bin Laden had been holed up in a compound in the military garrison town for years has threatened to worsen U.S. ties with nuclear-armed Pakistain, and raised questions over how the al Qaeda leader could live in comfort near Islamabad.

The Pak intelligence official acknowledged bin Laden's whereabouts may cause problems with the United States, and also embarrass Pakistain.

"It looks bad," he said. "It makes us look like a fool or an idiot. It's pretty embarrassing."

But, he added, the CIA had not had any luck finding bin Laden for 10 years either. "Had we known where he was, we would have gotten him ourselves," the official said.

The White House counterterrorism chief said on Tuesday there was no evidence Pak officials knew bin Laden was living at a compound deep inside the country, but the United States was also not ruling out the possibility.

Echoing President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari
... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ...
, the Pak official said the United States had acted alone in killing bin Laden, and that it had not asked for permission to enter Pak airspace.

"There is every possibility that what radars were there (in Abbottabad) were jammed," the official said, adding that up to 40 commandos had attacked the bin Laden compound.

But he said it was possible that some of the U.S. aircraft used in the raid had come from the Pak air base of Ghazi, just 54 km (33 miles) away from Abbottabad, while the transport helicopters possibly came from Afghanistan.

Ghazi was used by the United States for humanitarian relief operations after the floods of 2010.
Posted by:Fred

#12  Pakistan hit back Wednesday about US fears that it could not be trusted with details of the raid on osama bin Laden's compound and claimed it had identified the potential hideout as far back as 2009.

And just exactly was it that you did about it? Did the US command you not to investigate or something? Did you have one of the flunkies there at the academy go tour the residence? Or is unreasonable search and seizure against the Pakistani constitution?

The foreign minister, Salman Bashir, said CIA chief Leon Panetta's suggestion that Pakistan could have tipped off the al Qaeda leader and jeopardized Sunday's operation was "disquieting."

Yeah, I'm sure you're all shocked and amazed. BTW, how careful do you have to be with your secrets over there at ISI HQ?

"He is entitled to his views, but I know for sure that we have extended every cooperation to the US, including the CIA, and to other countries as far as the campaign against terror is concerned," Bashir told the BBC. "All the significant al Qaeda people who have been picked up, it was done by the ISI [Pakistan's Intelligence Service], from Pakistan towns and cities."

Yeah, for once, I'll bet they've all been picked up. Just like everyone else we've asked you to pick up.

Bashir went on to claim that the ISI passed on its suspicions about the compound in Abbottabad two years ago.

Yeah, along with 50,000 other tips. And I'm sure this one had some kind of special priority as compared to all the others.

"The fact is, on this particular occasion, it was pointed out by our intelligence quite some time ago to the US intelligence," he said. "We had indicated as far back as 2009 [it was] a possible place."

Heck, I recommended they investigate myself!

Bashir added that there were "millions" of other potential locations for bin Laden and that Pakistan had concentrated on the "caves and hideouts."

And any stragglers from the lawless areas, too.
Posted by: gorb   2011-05-04 17:15  

#11  A real Sneaky Pete? Or a tired old man co-opted and run by the ISI?

Anybody got a razor? Mr. Ockham?...
Posted by: mojo   2011-05-04 17:03  

#10  About those computers and hard drives:

Navy SEALs grabbed 10 hard drives, five computers and more than 100 storage devices, including flash drives, DVDs and documents. The SEALs also confiscated phone numbers from bin LadenÂ’s body...

I'm getting chills just thinking about it -- d'you suppose this is why there's been a shortage of ADHD meds lately, as they stocked up against projected need?

It's probably a good thing I have neither computer skillz nor a security clearance... ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife   2011-05-04 11:20  

#9  He said there was not enough room for the group on the other helicopters, which were transporting bin Laden's body, other male captives and the commandos.

The evil Americans are going to do in the womenfolk after they are done raping and torturing them, I suppose?

And now that we know Obean knew that we had a bead on UBL et. al., we can also assume that he knew we needed a place to put them if we did get our hands on them. And it makes sense that this would be the moment he stopped opposing Gitmo.
Posted by: gorb   2011-05-04 10:41  

#8  Excuses, excuses: Pak FM sez they told US that the compound was a possible hideout in 2009.

Link
Posted by: RandomJD   2011-05-04 09:49  

#7  Exactly correct COL P., that is why we are not hearing a great deal out of them just yet. They are awaiting our response. The old 'let's wait and see what they know that we know, that... we know' game. Why rush into it. Plenty of time to look stupider.
Posted by: Besoeker   2011-05-04 09:21  

#6  I don't suppose we could have scooped up all the hard drives and, when the press asked what else the SEAL team found in the palace shack other than Binny, replied, "oh, nothing much."
Posted by: Steve White   2011-05-04 09:17  

#5  Those computers and hard drives should be chock full of such tasty information. Many are the Paks, inside and outside of ISI, who're thinking up plausibly deniable things...
Posted by: Fred   2011-05-04 09:04  

#4  "It looks bad," he said. "It makes us look like a fool or an idiot. It's pretty embarrassing."

no, it makes you look like a duplicitous lying asshole. The mask has slipped. I hope we nabbed ISI persons or data on the raid
Posted by: Frank G   2011-05-04 07:52  

#3  [PAULA "YOU'VE GOT TO REMEMBER" ABDUL here].
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2011-05-04 01:04  

#2  "Daughter had seen her father rubbed out by US forces" > HMMMMM, HMMMMMMM.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2011-05-04 01:02  

#1   "Had we known where he was, we would have gotten him ourselves," the official said. Matthew 6:3 ends with the Pak proverb: "let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth"
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2011-05-04 00:21  

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