Pakistan arrests five men for helping CIA spy on Bin Laden house
28 replies, posted
[img]http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/6/15/1308138971785/Boys-play-cricket-near-Os-008.jpg[/img]
Boys play cricket near Osama bin Laden's last hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The country's top intelligence agency has accused five men of helping the CIA to spy on the compound. Photograph: Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images
[quote=The Guardian]
Pakistani intelligence has detained five alleged CIA informants who spied on Osama bin Laden in the months before the al-Qaida chief was killed in a special forces raid, US and Pakistani officials have said.
The Pakistani informants noted the details of vehicles visiting Bin Laden's house in Abbottabad, 35 miles north of Islamabad, and helped run a nearby house from which CIA spies watched the al-Qaida leader.
A Pakistani official said the owner of the CIA hideout had been arrested along with several other people.
A military spokesman denied a New York Times report that a serving army major had also been detained. The arrests highlight continuing tensions between the US and Pakistan in the wake of Bin Laden's death. They are likely to intensify pressure from senior Washington politicians to cut Pakistan's $2bn annual aid package.
Last week the CIA chief, Leon Panetta, visited Islamabad to meet the Pakistani army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, and the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI), General Shuja Pasha. Pakistani officials said Panetta was issued with stern warnings about CIA activities in Pakistan.
US media said Panetta had confronted the Pakistanis with video footage that showed militants fleeing a bomb factory in Waziristan shortly after the CIA had informed the Pakistani military of its location.
The CIA hideout in Abbottabad was set up some time after last August, when the CIA began to suspect Bin Laden could be hiding in the area, less than a mile from a major Pakistani military facility.
Watching from behind mirrored glass, CIA officials used telephoto lenses and infra-red imaging equipment to establish a "pattern of life" inside the compound and eavesdropped on voices inside. But they never conclusively identified Bin Laden.
A Pakistani official said the Americans hired locals because "the presence of white caucasians in Abbottabad would obviously have drawn attention". Since being arrested men have claimed they did not know they were working for the CIA.
"Some are saying they didn't know they were working for a foreign organisation. They said they were approached by a Pakistani, reported to a Pakistani and they weren't spying on Pakistan – they were spying on terrorists," he said.
One of those detained was believed to be a medic with the army medical corps, the official said. But the army spokesman said that was not true.
The arrests may bring fresh attention to a house 200 feet behind Bin Laden's back wall, on the far side of a field. Neighbours say it is owned by a serving army major.
The nameplate, which read Major Amir Aziz, was removed within days of the raid. The occupants of the house refused to answer the door.
A US official said only one of the arrested men was "related" to the US government and he was not a military official.
Pakistani officials insist they are within their rights to crack down on soldiers or civilians involved in foreign espionage. "No country would allow its officials or people to spy for another country," said one.
But American anger is fuelled by Pakistan's failure to locate any of the people who helped protect Bin Laden in Abbottabad for up to six years.
In a closed briefing last week senior congressmen asked the CIA deputy director, Michael Morell, to rate Pakistan's counter-terrorism cooperation on a scale of one to 10. "Three," replied Morell according to the New York Times.
Positions are hardening in Pakistan too. The military has shut down a US military training programme for the Frontier Corps paramilitary force, which leads the fight against the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal belt.
Last week the army leadership disputed US claims of $15bn in aid over the past decade. The true figure was $1.4bn with another $6.2bn going to the civilian government, a statement said.
The ISI is trying to expose undeclared CIA agents by scrutinising visas issued to suspicious foreigners. A US citizen living in Islamabad and married to a Pakistani has been arrested and charged with "anti-state activities".
Senior US officials have warned their Pakistani counterparts that if US personnel are barred from Pakistan, the CIA will find other ways of conducting espionage including drawing on the large Pakistani-American Muslim diaspora.
The CIA's biggest worry, though, is that Pakistan will restrict drone strikes against militant targets in the tribal belt. These attacks have continued unhindered since Bin Laden's death.
Some drones take off from an airstrip in western Balochistan province but are being moved to Afghanistan as a contingency measure.
A senior Pakistani official said the dispute represented a clash between "Pakistani hyper-nationalism and American arrogance".
"The lesson we should have learned from the OBL raid is that America has the power to circumvent us. Instead we've gone into chest-thumping nationalist mode, and that's not helping," he said.
[/quote]
Source:
[url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/15/pakistan-arrests-five-spying-cia[/url]
Quite unexpected, really.
[QUOTE=Ignhelper;30474702]unexpected[/QUOTE]
Yeah right
"Y U HELP TAKE DOWN WORLDWIDE CRIMINAL"
Reminds me of a child who is getting in trouble, but points at the person accusing them and says "YOU'RE THE ONE IN TROUBLE".
Maybe pakistan thinks you are massive fagolas for secretly operating in their country without asking.
I have a theory that Pakistan is actually helping Osama
Secretly.......
[QUOTE=Falchion;30475065]Maybe pakistan thinks you are massive fagolas for secretly operating in their country without asking.[/QUOTE]
Sucks for them having a government that leaks more than the Titanic.
Time to nuke Pakistan.
[editline]15th June 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=Falchion;30475065]Maybe pakistan thinks you are massive fagolas for secretly operating in their country without asking.[/QUOTE]
Maybe Pakistan are massive fagolas for secretly harboring the worst terrorist on Earth.
I [i]think[/i] they might have a bunch of people in their government working with terrorists.
But that's probably entirely wrong.
Yeah, they're [i]definitely[/i] on our side.
[QUOTE=Falchion;30475065]Maybe pakistan thinks you are massive fagolas for secretly operating in their country without asking.[/QUOTE]
Maybe we're a bit pissy, considering they had the man we've been hunting for the past 2 decades, just down the road from their westpoint military academy.
[QUOTE=Falchion;30475065]Maybe pakistan thinks you are massive fagolas for secretly operating in their country without asking.[/QUOTE]
Look everyone!
Look!
I SAID LOOK!
I made fun of America!
I'm accepted now, right?
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;30475398]Look everyone!
Look!
I SAID LOOK!
I made fun of America!
I'm accepted now, right?[/QUOTE]
He's not "making fun of America" He's really just pointing out Pakistani resentment for American personnel operating within their country without permission.
[QUOTE=analrapist;30475134]Time to nuke Pakistan.
[editline]15th June 2011[/editline]
Maybe Pakistan are massive fagolas for secretly harboring the worst terrorist on Earth.[/QUOTE]
Maybe you should look who killed the most civilians in this war?
[QUOTE=BCell;30475098]I have a theory that Pakistan is actually helping Osama
Secretly.......[/QUOTE]
No shit, the compound was half a mile from a Paki military base.
This is good news, not bad. It's about time somebody set us straight for stepping all over smaller countries in our godless witch hunt.
[QUOTE=Falchion;30475065]Maybe pakistan thinks you are massive fagolas for secretly operating in their country without asking.[/QUOTE]
We [I]are[/I] massive fagolas for doing that. We don't have any right to breach their sovereignty and break their laws without at least some private acknowledgment.
[QUOTE=analrapist;30475134]Time to nuke Pakistan.
Maybe Pakistan are massive fagolas for secretly harboring the worst terrorist on Earth.[/QUOTE]
Why is everyone's answer "nuke this, nuke that"? These are human beings we're talking about here.
"Pakistan" is not harboring anyone. At best there may be corrupted elements in the government, which should be singled out and eliminated to solve this kind of problem. That, and anyone who doesn't explicitly approve of and swoon over everything the US and it's lapdogs do is branded an Al-Qaeda supporter/bought off by the Taliban, which doesn't help the situation much.
We should stop chasing ghosts that have no capability to inflict irreparable harm and just get back to our own issues, like fixing our borked economy, until something warranting military action actually does happen.
It's ridiculous to assume that Pakistan, a country that has essentially been destroyed by terrorism, is in support of terrorism. But the narrative being played out is that they love terrorists and they aren't doing anything in the war against terrorism.
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;30475398]Look everyone!
Look!
I SAID LOOK!
I made fun of America!
I'm accepted now, right?[/QUOTE]
You are getting way too pissed like everyone here was out to get you. Americans make the majority of this forum, you are in the upper hand if it would come to some kind of a persecution.
3...2...1...PAKIWAR
[QUOTE=analrapist;30475134]Time to nuke Pakistan.[/QUOTE]
Gtfo.
Last I've read is that Islamabad denied this. Oh and there is a law in America, that will get you arrested if you're working for a foreign country, ally or not.
[QUOTE=BCell;30475098]I have a theory that Pakistan is actually helping Osama
Secretly.......[/QUOTE]
No shit Sherlock
[QUOTE=Falchion;30477667]You are getting way too pissed like everyone here was out to get you. Americans make the majority of this forum, you are in the upper hand if it would come to some kind of a persecution.[/QUOTE]
No, I pretty much hate the American government, and Considering how liberal facepunch is I doubt many of us here would stand up to defend the name of our shitty government.
Edit:
The people aren't that great either.
[QUOTE=jaaaaymeeeen;30483598]No, I pretty much hate the American government, and Considering how liberal facepunch is I doubt many of us here would stand up to defend the name of our shitty government.
Edit:
The people aren't that great either.[/QUOTE]
The exit is on the left.
[QUOTE=jaaaaymeeeen;30483598]No, I pretty much hate the American government, and Considering how liberal facepunch is I doubt many of us here would stand up to defend the name of our shitty government.
Edit:
The people aren't that great either.[/QUOTE]
That's right, just stereotype the whole American country.
There ARE good things that come out of that country..
[QUOTE=jaaaaymeeeen;30483598]No, I pretty much hate the American government, and Considering how liberal facepunch is I doubt many of us here would stand up to defend the name of our shitty government.
Edit:
The people aren't that great either.[/QUOTE]
If we had told Pakistan that we were going in chances are Osama wouldn't have been. It's fairly evident that they have a rat/multiple rats in their midst. Just look at the recent collaboration between U.S. Forces and Pakistani intelligence:
[quote=CNN]During a visit last week to Pakistan, Panetta raised the issue of two raids that appear to have failed because of intelligence leaks in recent weeks, a U.S. official said.
The United States had shown the Pakistanis evidence of two bomb-making sites near the Afghan border, the official said, asking not to be named discussing intelligence and diplomatic issues.
The Americans believed the sites were being used to stage attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
When the Pakistanis raided the sites, both were empty.
"The targets appear to have been tipped off," the U.S. official said.[/quote]
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/06/15/pakistan.cia.informants.arrested/index.html?hpt=wo_c2[/url]
Just an example of the sort of double game that Pakistan has been playing for a long while now. We've known this for years, we'd been under the impression Pakistan knew more than they were telling us since at least 2008. They're working to strengthen their ties amongst the instability in the region and to weaken India's. They don't give two fucks about our interests (not that they should, just a simple statement of my opinion) they just want to make sure India doesn't have a foothold in Afghanistan once the dust settles. Obviously the situation is more complex than that but if you ask me that's it in a nutshell.
[QUOTE=Ignhelper;30474702][img]http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/6/15/1308138971785/Boys-play-cricket-near-Os-008.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
Immediately thought of a Bollywood Karate Kid remake for some reason when I looked at this image. [b]v[/b]:v:[b]v[/b]
[QUOTE=BCell;30475098]I have a theory that Pakistan is actually helping Osama
Secretly.......[/QUOTE]
Or Osama was giving them something in return for safety
[QUOTE=analrapist;30475134]
Maybe Pakistan are massive fagolas for secretly harboring the worst terrorist on Earth.[/QUOTE]
What comprises a terrorist? A person who kills lots of people? A person who instills fear into others? Because there are far worse, more frightening men who have killed far more people. Osama is not the devil on Earth and there are bigger murderers walking around that every one is perfectly fine with. Stop being dogged around by the big bad boogie man in the closet.
[QUOTE=Pepin;30477083]It's ridiculous to assume that Pakistan, a country that has essentially been destroyed by terrorism, is in support of terrorism. But the narrative being played out is that they love terrorists and they aren't doing anything in the war against terrorism.[/QUOTE]
Everyone has their price.
It's the same thing when you look at the Cartels in Mexico...
Corrupt nations are always easy to put those who are wanted and rich into. They give them ample amounts of money to keep their mouth shut and to turn a blind eye to them even being there.
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