Questions Pakistan must answer now about Osama presence so close to its capital

Now that Osama bin Laden is dead and many questions will be raised about the circumstances of his demise, the most prominent focus is likely to be on Pakistan—who knew what about bin Laden’s whereabouts.

This is especially important given that everyone from former President General Pervez Musharraf to President Asif Zardari had denied bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan. Yet bin Laden was killed a stone’s throw from the Pakistan Military Academy in a house the locals referred to as “Waziristan haveli” (mansion from the area known to house militants in tribal regions of Pakistan).

Pakistan’s intelligence and military establishment have never truly shown which team they bat for: the United States or the enemies the US wants taken out. Its notorious Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) has supported and nurtured Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan along with a host of other political outfits banned by elected governments for their terrorist activities, like the Laskhar-e-Tayyaba. This has been ostensibly because it saw these militant groups as its foot soldiers in reserve for the war to liberate Kashmir from India. American officials have known about ISI’s double game but found themselves in a precarious situation where they had to rely on the agencies to make whatever gains intelligence and operational elements they could.

And gains were certainly made. Pakistan allowed the use of its airspace for the drone attacks, even if they publicly denied it. Top Al Qaeda leaders were captured in Pakistan with official assistance–the alleged mastermind of 9/11 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is one example.

But the questions being asked today are whether Pakistani officials could have helped shelter bin Laden. Especially since drone attacks have focused on the tribal areas of Pakistan causing massive casualties—many of them innocent Pakistanis—in the hope they would target bin Laden who was living in a military garrison suburb of Abbottabad allegedly for five years. This city is only 30 miles from the capital Islamabad and the bin Laden compound was 30 kilometers from the Pakistan Military Academy. It’s understandable that conspiracy theories abound on how bin Laden was in the shelter of the ISI.

Conspiracy theories notwithstanding, it explains why the US administration was reluctant to share details of Sunday’s raid with its Pakistani counterparts. There was simply no trust. While details still remain hazy of just how much Pakistan knew of the raid, it is certain that it did not know the “High Target Value” of the man it was assisting US operations in tracking.

Relations between the two nations had started to sour over Pakistan’s detention of Raymond Davis, an American agent (was he CIA? was he a CIA contractor? What was he doing in Pakistan with all this high-tech equipment?) charged with killing two Pakistani men in Lahore in January 2011. His detention and demands for his release became a focal point for the Obama Administration, which threatened to cut aid if Mr. Davis was not released—which he ultimately was in February in a deal that upset many Pakistanis.

The case was shrouded in mystery, botched up by both sides and now questions will be raised about whether Mr. Davis’ presence in Pakistan had anything to do with the bin Laden operation—which, as reports claim, was being planned for months.

What followed the Davis incident was Pakistan being more vocal on CIA scaling down its operations in Pakistan as embarrassing disclosures showed just active CIA were in Pakistan.

Then there is the issue of drone attacks in Pakistan, which had escalated and was proving difficult for the Zardari administration to justify. As reviled as a president as he may be, Mr. Zardari should be credited for being the only leader in Pakistan to take some ownership of the “war on terror” as Pakistan’s and not just at the behest of the United States. It is difficult to ascertain the number of Pakistanis killed by terrorist attacks but suffice it to say it is in the thousands.

And now the Pakistan military will have to answer some tough questions—not just to Americans but to its own citizens to whom it repeatedly speaks of “national interest” and “honor.” How, for example, is it in Pakistan’s national interest to provide safeguards to groups—like the Haqqani network based in North Waziristan—who commit acts of terror against innocent Muslims? The Haqqani group’s links to ISI and Al-Qaeda are all too well known—as is Pakistan’s reluctance to act against it.

Today Pakistan finds itself in a tight corner where it is likely to bear the brunt of revenge attacks from Al Qaeda wanting “vengeance” for the death of its leader. The Pakistani government has appeared hapless in its ability to control the ISI, known as a “state within a state,” and the military, which still unofficially holds the portfolio of foreign affairs, especially on India.

But the question is for how long? How long can Pakistan afford to be the sanctuary of terrorist organizations fighting proxy wars? And how long will Pakistanis stay silent over these gross acts of injustices they never voted for?
source-Al Arabia