WikiLeaks: Osama bin Laden 'protected' by Pakistani security

[kpete]

Source: Telegraph UK

WikiLeaks: Osama bin Laden 'protected' by Pakistani security
Pakistani security forces allegedly helped Osama bin Laden evade American troops for almost 10 years, according to secret US government files.

By Tim Ross 5:31PM BST 02 May 2011

American diplomats were told that one of the key reasons why they had failed to find bin Laden was that Pakistan’s security services tipped him off whenever US troops approached.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISID) also allegedly smuggled al-Qaeda terrorists through airport security to help them avoid capture and sent a unit into Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban.

The claims, made in leaked US government files obtained by Wikileaks, will add to questions over Pakistan’s capacity to fight al-Qaeda.

Last year, David Cameron caused a diplomatic furore when he told Pakistan that it could not “look both ways” on terrorism. The Pakistani government issued a strongly-worded rebuttal.

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8488236/WikiLeaks-Osama-bin-Laden-protected-by-Pakistani-security.html

[pauldp]

1. That's why we pay the ISI the big bucks.

close to 3B a year last I heard.

[corkhead]

2. So Pakistan has its fundy nutjobs just like we do.

Pat Robertson and I are both Americans, but we have very different views on things. Why is it not the same of the Pakistanis?

[cosmicone]

4. There is a difference ...

The entire military establishment in Pakistan believes terrorism is a fair and proper way of fighting against India and the US. It is NOT restricted to a few nutjobs but everyone from the Pakistani Army Chief down to NCOs believe this.

Osama was an ISI asset. Daniel Pearl was about to find out that Al Q'aeda and Taliban (along with Lashkar e Tayyaba and Jaish e Mohammad) were all SUBSIDIARIES of the ISI -- so he was killed.

If we force Pakistan to disband its military and the ISI, there will be peace in Afghanistan. Why does Pakistan need such a big military anyway?

[On the Road]

5. "If we force Pakistan to disband its military"

Has that ever happened in any country short of occupation?

[cosmicone]

8. If we don't pay them money, Pakistan would be bankrupt in

a few months. There is no economy to speak of. The largest export is terrorism, paid for by American aid.

We have paid Pakistan >$128 billion since the 50's, mostly during Reagan and GW eras.

[On the Road]

10. Well, If They Meant Pulling the Aid Money

to divert their military budget, that makes more sense. Still don't think it would amount to disbanding the military. There is a lot of conflict and internal unrest in that region. They have to have a military. And for all its double-dealing, the Pakistani military is needed to hold things together.

[krabigirl]

3. Just getting us ready for more war in Pakistan IMO.

[Vehl]

6. The ISI wired 100000 to Mohammed Atta before the 9/11 attacks!

The Pakistan connection

There is evidence of foreign intelligence backing for the 9/11 hijackers. Why is the US government so keen to cover it up?

Michael Meacher
The Guardian, Thursday 22 July 2004 00.01 BST
Article history

Omar Sheikh, a British-born Islamist militant, is waiting to be hanged in Pakistan for a murder he almost certainly didn't commit - of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. Both the US government and Pearl's wife have since acknowledged that Sheikh was not responsible. Yet the Pakistani government is refusing to try other suspects newly implicated in Pearl's kidnap and murder for fear the evidence they produce in court might acquit Sheikh and reveal too much.

Significantly, Sheikh is also the man who, on the instructions of General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker. It is extraordinary that neither Ahmed nor Sheikh have been charged and brought to trial on this count. Why not?

Ahmed, the paymaster for the hijackers, was actually in Washington on 9/11, and had a series of pre-9/11 top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon, the national security council, and with George Tenet, then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the under-secretary of state for political affairs. When Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having sent the money to the hijackers, he was forced to "retire" by President Pervez Musharraf. Why hasn't the US demanded that he be questioned and tried in court?

more here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jul/22/usa.september11

[woo me with science]

11. +10000 nt

[Vehl]

12. Daniel Pearl was the reporter who found that info...guess what happened to him?

is it any surprise that "someone" kidnapped him and offed him while in Pakistan? especially when he was the one who found out that the ISI funded Mohammed Atta? Gee I wonder who would have wanted him dead!

now we find Osama in a former(lol @former) ISi safe house in the middle of Pakistan's West Point. It does not take a rocket scientist to put two and two together

[Odin2005]

7. I've been telling people that for years.

[cosmicone]

9. me too .... n/t