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Sunday, May 15, 2011

The aftermath of Osama Bin Laden

Tension between the ISI and CIA surfaced after the US military operation in Abbottabad. A British newspaper claims that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) stopped sharing information with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after the covert US operation in Abbottabad. The paper claims that the ISI is not sharing information about the terrorists in the tribal areas and other operations with the CIA. This has put the various European countries along with Canada and America at a security risk. The paper also claims that rich people from the Arab states often used to meet with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda officials in Abbottabad. The administration of US President Barack Obama is divided over the future of its relationship with Pakistan following the killing of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, The Washington Post reported Sunday. US commandos killed bin Laden in an urban compound only 55 kilometers (35 miles) from the Pakistani capital Islamabad on May 2. The newspaper said that some officials, particularly in the White House, have advocated a strong US response. “You can’t continue business as usual,” the paper quotes one of several senior administration officials as saying who discussed the sensitive issue only on the condition of anonymity. “You have to somehow convey to the Pakistanis that they have arrived at a big choice.” “People who were prepared to listen to (Pakistan’s) story for a long time are no longer prepared to listen,” the official went on to say. But few officials are willing to consider the alternatives if Pakistan makes the wrong choice, the report said. Every available option — from limiting US aid and official contacts to unleashing more unilateral ground attacks against terrorist targets — jeopardizes existing Pakistani help in the war on terror, The Post noted. Military success and an eventual negotiated settlement of the Afghanistan war are seen as virtually impossible without some level of Pakistani assistance, the paper pointed out. US Congress man Mike Rogers alleged that al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri was hiding in Pakistan. Chairman of the Congressional Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers was reluctant to considering Pakistan a partner in the war against terrorism. He said that Pakistan-US relations were going through a difficult phase and the word ‘ally’ was too big to be used for Pakistan. He said that it was a golden opportunity for Pakistan to inform the US about the hideout of al-Zawahri.

The hunt for Osama bin Laden

A central figure in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the debate over harsh interrogation methods was held in secret CIA detention, then sent back to Pakistan and now believed to have returned to the battlefield. US counter-terrorism officials said Hassan Ghul is an al Qaeda operative who at one point carried messages between Iraqi insurgents who established an al Qaeda affiliate after US troops overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein. Precise details of the mysterious Ghul’s role in al Qaeda and the circumstances of his arrest are murky. But five US officials familiar with Ghul’s role in the epic hunt for bin Laden said he gave up what turned out to be vital information about an al Qaeda courier who eventually led US intelligence to bin Laden’s fortified hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan. While detained in secret CIA prisons, the officials and declassified government documents said, Ghul was subjected to controversial “enhanced interrogation” techniques approved by the George W. Bush administration but abandoned amid accusations they constituted torture. But did harsh interrogation practices really make Ghul give up the critical information which helped lead US commandos to bin Laden? Some officials familiar with still-classified records of Ghul’s sojourn as a CIA prisoner said the case is far from proven. For months, investigators for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, have been poring through millions of pages of reports generated by the CIA’s secret detention and interrogation program. Earlier this week, Feinstein told Reuters about a CIA detainee who “did provide useful and accurate intelligence.” But she added: “This was acquired before the CIA used their enhanced interrogation techniques against the detainee.” Three US officials said Feinstein was referring to Ghul. While there is a paper trail documenting what Ghul said, when he said it, what techniques agency interrogators used on him and when they used them, this record remains classified. Feinstein spoke after Sen. John McCain made a Senate floor speech insisting that “it was not torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees that got us the major leads” that led to bin Laden. In a letter to McCain obtained by Reuters, CIA director Leon Panetta was equivocal about the role enhanced interrogation played in producing intelligence on bin Laden. “Some of the detainees who provided useful information about the facilitator/courier’s role had been subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques,” Panetta wrote. But he added: “Whether those techniques were the ‘only timely and effective way’ to obtain such information is a matter of debate and cannot be established definitively.” But other US officials familiar with the secret records say that even if Ghul did give up critical information about bin Laden’s courier before being subjected to coercive interrogations, that is not proof they had no impact. One official said it is possible Ghul gave up vital information out of fear he was about to be subjected to such harsh tactics. One key witness who might be able to resolve the debate is Hassan Ghul himself. But US counterterrorism officials acknowledged that after the CIA released him into the custody of Pakistan, and Pakistani authorities set him free around 2007, he is thought to have rejoined militants and returned to the battlefield. His current whereabouts are unknown. The publicly available paper trail on Ghul, and the CIA’s dealings with him, is much thinner than that on other detainees also subjected to enhanced interrogations, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Reuters pieced together an outline of Ghul’s story from CIA and Justice Department documents, as well as Guantanamo Bay detainee reports released by WikiLeaks. According to US officials, Ghul, a Pakistani national, was reported captured in Iraq in January 2004. The 9/11 Commission Report describes him as an al Qaeda facilitator. The CIA subjected Ghul to enhance interrogation techniques at an undisclosed location, according to a May 2005 memo from the Justice Department to senior CIA lawyer John A. Rizzo. The memo was a response to a CIA request for legal guidance on use of enhanced interrogation practices. The Justice Department cited his interrogation as one example of the acceptable use of those techniques. “The Interrogation team ‘carefully analyzed Ghul’s responsiveness to different areas of inquiry’ during this time and noted that his resistance increased as questioning moved to his ‘knowledge of operational terrorist activities,’” it said. Ghul was subjected to “attention grasp, walling, facial grasp, facial slap, wall standing, stress positions and sleep deprivation” by his interrogation team, the document says.