Washington: Elements in Pakistan’s military and intelligence service supported former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before he was killed by the US forces in a garrison town near Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, Chairman of the US House Intelligence Committee said Tuesday.
“I believe that there are elements of both the military and intelligence service who in some way, both prior and maybe even current, provided some level of assistance to Osama bin Laden,” said Mike Rogers, Republican leader from Michigan and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, who recently returned from a visit to Pakistan.
Rogers, who met in Pakistan with ISI head Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha and Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the chief of Pakistan’s military, said he knew of no evidence that implicated the political and military leadership of Pakistan in harboring bin Laden in a hideout in Abottabad.
He said, however, that recent news reports indicating that insurgents were tipped off in advance to a military raid on a site used for making bombs suggested Pakistan’s military and ISI were compromised.
“I do believe — I think the recent news report on the compounds highlights — there is some level of sympathizers within the ISI, within the local police departments, within the way they would handle that piece of information […] there are certainly sympathizers, and I think you can extrapolate that on a proactive side to the fact that Osama bin Laden was in Abbottobad for nearly five years.”
Rogers said Pakistan has yet to make a decision after the US raid against bin Laden to intensify the country’s efforts to combat terrorism. He said that US Embassy operations were being hindered by Pakistan’s military in some cases. He also said Pakistan needed to be more transparent and allow US intelligence officials access to detainees.
“Now is the time to put more pressure on Pakistan to do the right thing,” he said.
Rogers said he considered Pakistan to be a “military with a country,” not a country with a military. For now, the military has not chosen to strengthen its alliance with America against al Qaeda and Taliban following the raid on bin Laden’s compound, he said.
“They could have said: ‘We are going to redouble our efforts with the United States. We are going to fight extremism. We are going to fight terrorism. We are going to join with you as partners to try to remove the extremist and dangerous elements in Pakistan that we know have targeted the United States in the past,’” he said.
“That would have been the outcome we looked for; that’s the outcome we were hoping for; that’s the outcome we were advocating for with Pakistan. Unfortunately, I think my trip confirmed for me and all the intelligence I see that is not the Pakistan that we find ourselves with today,” he added.
Rogers further said it was “naive” to expect negotiations with the Taliban to lead to a viable exit strategy from Afghanistan.
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