Official: Pakistan arrested informants who led CIA to bin Laden

Pakistan's intelligence agency arrested "a few" informants who gave information to the CIA before the raid that left Osama bin Laden dead, a Pakistani intelligence official said Wednesday.

The arrests were addressed during the Friday meeting between CIA Director Leon Panetta, Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, Pakistan's head of military intelligence.

The official, who asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said he did not know the exact number of informants arrested or what date it happened.

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U.S.A Reducing Troops In Pakistan

The U.S. military said Wednesday it has begun pulling some American troops out of Pakistan after Islamabad requested a smaller presence, amid tensions over a U.S. raid against Osama bin Laden.

"We were recently (within past 2 weeks) notified in writing that the government of Pakistan wished for the U.S. to reduce its footprint in Pakistan. Accordingly, we have begun those reductions," spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said in an email to reporters.

There are more than 200 U.S. military personnel in Pakistan serving mostly as trainers as part of a long-running effort to counter al-Qaida and Islamist militants.

But the uneasy relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. has come under severe strain following a unilateral raid by U.S. commandos that killed bin Laden on May 2 in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, home to a military academy.

President Barack Obama's administration has stepped up diplomatic efforts to smooth over the crisis sparked by the raid on the al-Qaida leader's compound, while some lawmakers in Congress have called for cutting aid to Islamabad.

Since the bin Laden operation, the U.S. has kept up CIA drone strikes on militant targets in Pakistan's northwest. The bombing raids are deeply unpopular and often draw public criticism from Pakistani officials.

Osama Done In By Spy Ring Backed By Military Network

By SIOBHAN GORMAN And JULIAN E. BARNES

In January, the chief of the military's elite special-operations troops accepted an unusual invitation to visit Central Intelligence Agency headquarters. There, Adm. William McRaven was shown, for the first time, photos and maps indicating the whereabouts of the world's most wanted man.

Adm. McRaven—one of the first military officers to be brought into the CIA's latest hunt for Osama bin Laden—offered a blunt assessment: Taking bin Laden's compound would be reasonably straightforward. Dealing with Pakistan would be hard.

A Wall Street Journal reconstruction of the mission planning shows that this meeting helped define a profound new strategy in the U.S. war on terror, namely the use of secret, unilateral missions powered by a militarized spy operation. The strategy reflects newfound trust between two traditionally wary groups: America's spies, and its troops.

The bin Laden strike was the strategy's "proof of concept," says one U.S. official.
Last month's military strike deep inside Pakistan is already being used by U.S. officials as a negotiating tool—akin to, don't make us do that again—with countries including Pakistan thought to harbor other terrorists. Yemen and Somalia are also potential venues, officials said, if local-government cooperation were found to be lacking.

The new U.S. strategy has roots in a close relationship between CIA Director Leon Panetta and Adm. McRaven. In 2009, the two inked a secret agreement setting out rules for joint missions that provided a blueprint for dozens of operations in the Afghan war before the bin Laden raid.

The reshuffling of the Obama administration's national-security team will likely reinforce the relationship between the nation's spies and its top military teams. Mr. Panetta is expected to take over the Pentagon this summer armed with a strong understanding of its special-operations capabilities. Gen. David Petraeus, who is expected to become CIA director, made extensive use of special operations while running wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This account of the planning of the raid on bin Laden's home in Abbottabad, Pakistan, is based on interviews with more than a dozen administration, intelligence, military and congressional officials.

Officials and experts say the new U.S. approach will likely be used only sparingly. "This is the kind of thing that, in the past, people who watched movies thought was possible, but no one in the government thought was possible," one official said.

2004 CIA learns the nom de guerre of one of Osama bin Laden's trusted couriers.

2007 CIA learns the courier's real name.
2009 CIA and special-forces commanders ink a secret deal to conduct joint operations.
May 2009 CIA briefs President Obama on bin Laden.
Aug. 2010 Courier is tailed by the CIA to his home in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Sept. 2010 Mr. Panetta briefs Mr. Obama on the Abbottabad compound.
Dec. 2010 CIA station chief's cover is blown in Pakistan; U.S. blames Pakistan's intelligence agency
Dec. 2010 Mr. Panetta updates Mr. Obama, who calls for attack planning to begin.
Jan. 2011 CIA briefs Adm. William McRaven, commander of military special-operations troops.
Jan. 27 CIA contractor Raymond Davis is charged in the shooting deaths of two Pakistanis.
Feb. 25 Select group of CIA and military officials meet to discuss intelligence and uncertainty regarding bin Laden's presence.
March 14 Obama decides on urgent unilateral action.
March 16 Mr. Davis is freed in Pakistan, easing the path to attack bin Laden's compound.
April 11 Mr. Panetta meets with Pakistani intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha.
April 19 Mr. Obama gives provisional go-ahead for helicopter raid.
April 28 National Security Council meets to present final plans for helicopter raid to the president.
April 29 Mr. Obama authorizes raid on the Abbottabad compound.
April 30 Mr. Obama calls Adm. McRaven for final status check.
May 2 An early-morning raid kills bin Laden deep in Pakistani territory.
May 2 Adm. Mullen calls Pakistan Army Chief Gen. Kayani to tell him of the raid.
May 7 Pakistan appears to out the CIA's station chief in Islamabad.
May 9 Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani gives a speech saying Pakistan didn't harbor bin Laden and criticizing the U.S. strike on its territory.
May 16 Sen. John Kerry travels to Pakistan to smooth tensions.

Pakistani Parliament Condemns U.S. Raid, Threatens Sanctions

This can only be termed as bizzare or a thief threating the police. Pakistan which is clearly in the docks due to its connivance with Osama and Al-Qaeda against the US war effort is trying to deflect attention by passing resolutions which have no meaning. What they have done today can be looked as a classic case of guilty conscious, instead of being happy that a monster has been put to rest they are trying to hit back at everybody that is questioning their dual faced policy when it comes to terror.

Pakistan's parliament threatened Saturday to cut off access to a facility used by NATO forces to ferry troops into Afghanistan, signaling a growing rift that began when U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden during a raid on a Pakistani compound.

A resolution adopted during a joint session of parliament condemned the U.S. action. It also called for a review of its working agreement with the U.S., demanded an independent investigation and ordered the immediate end of drone attacks along its border region.

Failure to end unilateral U.S. raids and drone attacks will force Pakistan to "to consider taking necessary steps, including withdrawal of (the) transit facility" used by the NATO's International Security Assistance Force, according to the resolution.

U.S. lawmakers have questioned how the world's most wanted terrorist managed to live in plain sight for years in Pakistan -- near the country's elite military academy -- without being detected.

Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials have said there is no evidence that any active members of Pakistan's military or intelligence establishment knew about or actively protected the al Qaeda leader.

Publicly, leaders in both countries have downplayed a rift.
But the unanimous resolution made clear there was a growing dissatisfaction among Pakistani lawmakers.

The resolution also ordered a review of its counter-terrorism cooperation agreement with the United States.

The government is deeply "distress(ed) on the campaign to malign Pakistan, launched by certain quarters in other countries without appreciating Pakistan's determined efforts and immense sacrifices in combating terror," the resolution said.

It also said more than 30,000 Pakistani civilians and more than 5,000 military personnel had been killed in its fight against terror "and the blowback emanating from actions of the NATO/ISAF forces in Afghanistan."

Anger over U.S. drone strikes has mounted during the past year after it stepped up efforts along the Pakistani-Afghan border.

On Friday, a suspected U.S. drone strike killed four suspected Islamic militants in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials. They said an unmanned aircraft fired four missiles at a militant's vehicle on the border area.

The demands by the Pakistani civilian government come as new details emerge about the raid on bin Laden's Abbottabad compound.

Members of the U.S. Navy SEAL team that attacked the compound were wearing helmet-mounted digital cameras that recorded the mission, a U.S. military official told on Friday.

The official described the digital recording as hazy, fast-moving and subject to poor lighting in the rooms. The source also said it is hard to get clear images from the footage.

"This is not movie-quality stuff," the official said.

An official familiar with the material seized from the compound said Friday that Navy SEALs recovered a stash of pornography. The official would not discuss exactly where it was found, what it was or whether it is believed to belong to the al Qaeda leader or to someone else living at the site, such as bin Laden's couriers or his son.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Bin Laden's compound is also undergoing intense analysis, and U.S. officials say he apparently enjoyed a support network in Pakistan that allowed him to stay in one location for the past several years. He had no escape plan or means to destroy his reams and gigabytes of documents in the event of an enemy assault, according to the U.S. sources.

Two U.S. lawmakers joined a public chorus for the release of photos of bin Laden's body after seeing the images themselves.

"These are very graphic, gruesome pictures," said Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado. But seeing them "gave me a sense of finality and closure."

A conservative legal watchdog group has filed the first lawsuit seeking the public release of the video and photographs of the raid and its aftermath.

Judicial Watch is asking the Department of Defense to comply with a Freedom of Information request for the material, especially photos of bin Laden's body. The legal complaint to force compliance was made in federal court in Washington on Friday.

US Senators Introduce Bill To Cut Off Pak Aid

Press Trust Of India
Posted on May 11, 2011 at 02:18pm IST

Washington: A key US lawmaker has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to stop American aid to Pakistan, saying the killing of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad has made it clear that Islamabad concealed, protected and enabled him for many years.

"We can no longer afford this foolishness," Congressman Dana Rohrabacher said after introducing the 'Defund United States Assistance to Pakistan Act of 2011' in the House of Representative.

"The time has come for us to stop subsidising those who actively oppose us. Pakistan has shown itself not to be America's ally," he said.

The bill says that terrorist outfits based in Pakistan, especially Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), has been responsible for terrorist strikes inside India including the Mumbai terrorist attack in November 2008, in which 166 people including six American nationals were killed.

Rohrabacher is a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

The bill outlines several accounts of Pakistan's duplicitous behavior toward the US including recent reports of Pakistani leadership lobbying Afghan President Hamid Karzai to move away from "imperial" America and to embrace Communist China, said a statement issued by the Congressman.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen said the Pakistani intelligence service has had a long relationship with the Haqqani terror group that is right now "killing Americans" in Afghanistan.

In 1998, Pakistan's military and intelligence services facilitated the transfer of an unexploded American Tomahawk missile recovered by Taliban to China.

The Chinese were then able to reverse engineer the missile and dissect its components allowing them to learn its vulnerabilities and defeat its capabilities.

During last week's raid in Abbottabad, a specially configured stealth US Special Forces helicopter crashed and even though US soldiers attempted to destroy it, the tail was left intact and recovered by the Pakistanis.

Rohrabacher demanded immediate return of the debris for fear of American military secrets being compromised.

"If this is not done immediately, it is probable, given Pakistan's history, that our technology has already found its way into the hands of the Communist Chinese military that is buying, building, and stealing the necessary military technology to challenge the United States," said Rohrabacher.

According to a May 9 report in Defense News, the wreckage has seemingly disappeared, leading to speculation that pieces may have been shipped to China or made available to Chinese engineers in Pakistan.

The bill prohibits assistance to Pakistan under any provision of law and would take effect on the date of enactment.

The US has given approximately $20 billion as aid to Pakistan over the past decade.