The head of al-Qaeda and the world's most famous terrorist Osama bin Laden was able to hide in Pakistan for close to a decade thanks to the "collective failure" of Pakistani military and intelligence officials according to a leaked Pakistani government report, reports Al Jazeera.
The report was written by the Abbottabad Commission with the testimony of over 200 witnesses, including members of bin Laden's family and high ranking government officials. The report had two main focuses: to understand "how the U.S. was able to execute a hostile military mission which lasted around three hours deep inside Pakistan," and to understand how "Pakistan's intelligence establishment apparently had no idea that an international fugitive of the renown or notoriety of [Osama bin Laden] was residing in [Abbottabad]," according to Al Jazeera.
The report found that Pakistan's civilian and military leadership were guilty of "gross incompetence" in the way that they handled the Bin Laden affair. Pakistan's intelligence agency "closed the book" on its hunt for the al-Qaeda leader in 2005, according to USA Today.
The report was especially damning of Pakistani intelligence and military for allowing the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct an operation to locate bin Laden within Pakistan without their knowledge. The commission said that it was "a case of nothing less than a collective and sustained dereliction of duty by the political, military and intelligence leadership of the country," reports Al Jazeera.
Some of the questions asked of top Pakistani military commanders weren't questions so much as they were condemnations of the events that happened in Abbottabad.
"Is it official or unofficial defense policy not to attempt to defend the country if threatened or even attacked by a military superpower like the U.S.?" the commission asked.
The report also explains how bin Laden was able to live in Pakistan undetected for close to a decade.
"They kept a very low profile and lived extremely frugally," the report says. "They never exposed themselves to public view. They had the cover of the two Pakistani Pashtun couriers cum security guards. They had minimum security. Osama bin Laden successfully minimized any 'signature' of his presence. His minimal support blended easily with the surrounding community."
The most remarkable finding in the report came from an interview with Maryam, the wife of Ibrahim al-Kuwaiti, one of bin Laden's most trusted bodyguards. Maryam told investigators that they would occasionally go to the local bazaar and bin Laden would accompany them. On one of the trips the car was pulled over by a police officer for speeding. Maryam said that her husband quickly "settled the matter" without going into details what exactly that entailed, reports The Telegraph.
The Pakistani report can be read in its entirety, all 336 pages, here.
