Islamabad: Osama bin Laden used a Pakistani militant group Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen as part of his support group inside Pakistan, an American newspaper quoted a senior US official as saying.
The paper said that the cellphone of bin Laden’s courier, which was recovered in May 2 US raid that killed both men in Abbottabad, contained contacts to a militant group that is a longtime asset of Pakistan’s intelligence agency.
The paper quoting US officials said that the indications of Osama’s contact with the Harakat also raised questions about whether the group and others like it helped shelter and support Bin Laden on behalf of Pakistan’s spy agency.
The newspaper said in tracing the calls on the cellphone, American analysts has determined that Harakat commanders had called Pakistani intelligence officials, the senior American officials said. One said they had met. The officials added that the contacts were not necessarily about Bin Laden and his protection and that there was no “smoking gun” showing that Pakistan’s spy agency had protected Bin Laden.
The paper said Harakat has especially deep roots in the area around Abbottabad, and the network provided by the group would have enhanced Bin Laden’s ability to live and function in Pakistan, analysts familiar with the group said. Its leaders have strong ties with both Al Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence, and they can roam widely because they are Pakistanis, something the foreigners who make up Al Qaeda’s ranks cannot do.
Even today, the group’s leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, long one of Bin Laden’s closest Pakistani associates, lives unbothered by Pakistani authorities on the outskirts of Islamabad.
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