Abbottabad Commission terms OBL operation a collective failure

ISLAMABAD: Terming it a collective failure of authorities as a whole, the Abbottabad Commission Report says no Pakistani institution or individual alone was responsible for the operation, which killed former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil.

According to a copy of the report --acquired by Geo News-- the US Navy SEALs were provided with strategic ground support/intelligence for the operation to capture the world’s most wanted man.

The report accuses authorities of complacency, collective failure and negligence that allowed Osama bin Laden to live undetected in the country for more than nine years and his subsequent killing by the US troops in a covert operation in Pakistan.

"OBL was able to stay within the limits of Abbottabad Cantonment due to a collective failure of the military authorities, the intelligence authorities, the police and the civilian administration," said the report.

"This failure included negligence and incompetence and at some undetermined level a grave complicity may or may not have involved," it added.

"How the entire neighbourhood, local officials, police and security and intelligence officials all missed the size, the strange shape, the barbed wire, the lack of cars and visitors etc over a period of nearly six years beggars belief," the report said.

"There was also extensive complacency, inefficiency and negligence in the local civil administration, the police and the civil and military intelligence agencies and security authorities of the cantonment area," it added.

Had leads or abnormalities been followed up professionally the report cautioned, it might have led to a different outcome than the US raid that violated Pakistan sovereignty, it said.

The testimonies of Osama’s spouses are also included in the report.

According to his wives, bin Laden fled the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, arriving in Pakistan in the spring or summer of 2002, and staying for more than nine years.

The commission also reported that tracing Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan and subsequently sharing this intelligence with the government was solely Inter Services Intelligence's (ISI) responsibility.

On page 17 of the commission's report also says: Having killed Osama bin Laden (OBL), the Americans reportedly took his body and dumped it in Indian Ocean with the sotry line that it was buried in accordance with the Islamic rituals, however according to some religious authorities, Islam does not permit burial at sea of persons who died on the land.

The report also adds that no pictures of the OBL's body were released, but there since had been an unauthenticated WikiLeaks report that in fact OBL's body was taken to US.

After neutralizing OBL, the US Navy SEALs handcuffed the surviving women and some of the children and collected a treasure trove of information in the shape of hard drives, thumb disks, and written material, the report revealed.

Before flying back to Jalalabad undetected and un-intercepted, US troops also destroyed one of the disabled helicopters. According to an American account, the mission was as easy as "mowing the lawn", the report further said.

The report says the statements of President Asif Ali Zardari, former Prime Minisiter Yousuf Raza Gilani, and Chief of the Army Staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani remain reserved to date as they did not appear before the commission.

The Abbottabad Commission was set up in a bid to get to the bottom of one of the most embarrassing episodes in Pakistani history.

Parliament had demanded an independent investigation into how bin Laden had been able to hide and whether there was any government or military collusion.

The commission interviewed senior civilian and military officials and the three widows of bin Laden before they were deported to Saudi Arabia last year.

Osama bin Laden, the founder and head of the extremist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, by Navy SEALs of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or SEAL Team Six).

The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a Central Intelligence Agency-led operation.

In addition to DEVGRU, participating units included the U.S. Army Special Operations Command's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) and CIA operatives.

The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was launched from Afghanistan. After the raid, U.S. forces took bin Laden's body to Afghanistan for identification, then buried it at sea within 24 hours of his death.

Al-Qaeda confirmed the death on May 6 with posts made on militant websites, vowing to avenge the killing.