Bin Laden's house in Abbottabad, Rawalpindi (Photo : Twitter)
More than four years after the death of Osama Bin Laden, new facts have surfaced that is forcing us to have a relook at the circumstances that led to the death of the dreaded terrorist.
According to new insight provided by investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, US forces had got hold of Bin Laden in a staged commando operation with chief of Pakistan's ISI and army chief being in the loop.
Information about Bin Laden was leaked by an ISI intelligence official in exchange for the $25 million bounty that the US had put on the terrorist, claimed Hersh.
"The most blatant lie was that Pakistan's two most senior military leaders - Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani (the-then army chief) and Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha (the-then ISI chief) - were never informed of the US mission," Hersh was quoted as saying to Dawn.
The Taliban chief was living as a prisoner of the ISI since 2006 and moved under their strict supervision. The Saudi government too had knowledge of Bin Laden living under ISI protection in the garrison town of Abbottabad and has advised the ISI to keep his as a prisoner, reported CNN.
The Pakistanis agreed to comply with America's request to capture Bin Laden in exchange for military aid and concessions in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani also wanted the US to reveal they got hold of Bin Laden from the Hindu Kush region so that neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan could be held accountable for the Taliban chief's arrest. The Pakistanis also wished the Taliban chief be killed as they did not want any living witness.
The story doing the rounds prior to Hersh's revelation is that the US forces comprising of Navy SEAL commandos had killed the Taliban chief in a daring operation carried out on the night of May 2, 2011.
The Obama administration had earlier decided to announce that Bin Laden was killed in a drone attack but was forced to change the story after a helicopter involved in the mission crashed at the site in Abbottabad, mentioned VOX.
The physician who has been falsely implicated for leaking the whereabouts of Bin Laden continues to languish in jail. Hersh's report though mentions Dr Shakil Afridi to be a CIA asset.
Seymour Hersh who has earlier made sensational revelations concerning US raids in Vietnam or about excesses meted out to prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Iraq published the story at the London Review of Books.
US officials have chosen to refute the claims made by the journalist.
