SPY EYES

Some New Revelations

By General (Retd) Mirza Aslam Beg

From the cool comfort of the White House Obama watched the drama of raid on the house in Abbottabad. This was a CIA operation, meant to fool the world and embarrass Pakistan but the fact of the matter is that the whole exercise was a fake and a lie, same as the 9/11 episode was to find an excuse to launch the Crusade against the Muslim World. On the day of attack, that is 2^nd May, I made the comment to the Pakistani media, that “It was a drama and a lie, to embarrass Pakistan. There was no Osama there, attack helicopters came from Tarbela base, carrying an Osama look-alike and killed him in cold blood, in front of his family members who were living in the house.” And that is coming true.

And now, as more information is coming through, it is getting clearer that Osama was killed in 2009 and his bullet ridden photo was published and the same picture was shown on 2^nd May 2011, but was immediately withdrawn, when the mistake was realized. The Iranian President, in his recent statement, has said “Osama was captured a few years back and now they have played the drama of killing him in Pakistan for political gains.”

Some of our eminent journalists, who visited the sites and interviewed eye-witnesses, have something very interesting to reveal: “The people from village Kund Hassan Zai of Kala Dhaka, claim that the two helicopters came from the direction of Tarbela, midnight ½ May, flying low, along the river and landed in the fields of Manab Khan, stayed there for about thirty minutes and flew away in the direction of Mansehra. In the morning we saw wheel marks of the helicopters and some trash also.” The locals of Abbottabad living in the proximity of the house said that “The two helicopters came over the house and as they hovered, we saw fire in the compound of the house, which soon got extinguished. If a helicopter had crashed and caught fire, the fire could not have been extinguished in such a short time. Later on, when we visited the site we saw burnt-up plastic pieces with letter ‘NSA’ written on one of the piece. There was no trace of a burnt-out helicopter.”

The local school teacher Muhammad Asif revealed: “There is no question of Osama living here for the last five years. This house is located a little away from the main road, on a lower ground. It has no telephone connection and no other communication facility. Other houses also have high boundary walls and we just cannot believe that such a high value target was living there, with no security cover at all.” A neighbour, said: “On several occasions I met Khan Sahib, his brother and children, living in this house but never saw any elderly person. They spoke Pashto, but spoke to us in Urdu. It appears the Americans brought here some one other than Osama and killed him, for a specific purpose.”

A neighbour, Latif Akbar says “on night 01/2 May, due to load shedding, there was no light when the two helicopters came over the house from the PMA side, past mid night. One helicopter threw a flare, which lit-up the area of Thanda Choa – Bilal Town. As the two helicopters hovered over the house, we came-out of our houses and saw about 20-25 soldiers jump-out, close to the outer wall of the house, while soldiers from the second helicopter, came sliding down the ropes inside the house compound. In the meantime, some 20-25 of us neighbours had collected in the lane leading to the house. Suddenly the lights were switched on and one of the soldiers shouted in Pashto: “Lights-off Laka” and soon the lights were switched-off. In the meantime, we heard three explosions and a portion of the boundary wall fell-down. Some of the people who had collected there, rushed inside through the gap, thinking it was Pak Army helicopter, which needed rescue but soon rushed back as they saw the foreigners. A few of these were taken prisoner and whisked away. We heard shots being fired from inside. The operation continued till about one thirty at night. Pak troops came later, when the two helicopters had flown away in the direction of Mansehra. Its surprising that for the next two days, the residents of the area and the media, had free access into the house.”

It is rather unfortunate that the government of Pakistan and the institutions fell victim to this ploy and accepted security lapses without finding answer, to these basic questions:

• This house was raided in 2009, to capture Abul Faraj and why couldn’t they find Osama then, if he and his family were living there since 2006?
• Reportedly, two of our fighter aircrafts scrambled, within thirty minutes of the raid, but failed to intercept. Why?
• Our civilian intelligence apparatus, such as the IB, CID and the SAC (Special Anti Crime) units have the prime responsibility for the security of the urban and rural population. What was their role and why the entire blame has fallen on the ISI?
• The USA had been our ally for the last half a century and we also earned the title of “most allied ally, and the non-NATO ally of USA” and yet we have been stabbed in the back and are being blamed for failing to protect ourselves, from this “friendly deceit.

”Senator John Karry was in town and the joint declaration says: “Jointly we shall undertake such actions in the future”, which means that the drone attacks will continue and now we will be asked to capture Aiman-al-Zawahari and after him, the next and the next and the blood of innocent Pakistanis will continue to be spilled. Why can’t we have the courage to tell the Americans to lay-off because Osama, the source of all terrorism is dead? In fact terrorism started with the occupation of Afghanistan and will end when occupation ends, and that should have been the crux of the declaration, i.e., “the end game and the time frame of exit.”