Osama bin Laden’s seized cellphone has increased informed speculation that he was linked to some elements of Pakistan intelligence due to contacts on it with a group that is linked to the ISA.
The cellphone of Osama bin Laden’s trusted courier, which was recovered in the raid that killed both men in Pakistan last month, contained contacts to a militant group that is a longtime asset of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, senior American officials who have been briefed on the findings say.
The discovery indicates that Bin Laden used the group, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, as part of his support network inside the country, the officials and others said. But it also raised tantalizing questions about whether the group and others like it helped shelter and support Bin Laden on behalf of Pakistan’s spy agency, given that it had mentored Harakat and allowed it to operate in Pakistan for at least 20 years, the officials and analysts said.
In tracing the calls on the cellphone, American analysts have determined that Harakat commanders had called Pakistani intelligence officials, the senior American officials said. One said they had met. The officials added that the contacts were not necessarily about Bin Laden and his protection and that there was no “smoking gun” showing that Pakistan’s spy agency had protected Bin Laden.
But the cellphone numbers provide one of the most intriguing leads yet in the hunt for the answer to an urgent and vexing question for Washington: How was it that Bin Laden was able to live comfortably for years in Abbottabad, a town dominated by the Pakistani military and only a three-hour drive from Islamabad, the capital?
“It’s a serious lead,” said one American official, who has been briefed in broad terms on the cellphone analysis. “It’s an avenue we’re investigating.”
The revelation also provides a potentially critical piece of the puzzle about Bin Laden’s secret odyssey after he slipped away from American forces in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan nearly 10 years ago. It may help answer how and why Bin Laden or his protectors chose Abbottabad, where he was killed in a raid by a Navy Seals team on May 2.
The BBC reports that the Harkut ul-Mujahideen has adamantly denied it was linked to bin Laden. Of course the logical question is: if it was, would it admit it?
Pakistani militant group Harkut ul-Mujahideen (HuM) has denied US media reports that it had links with Osama Bin Laden and was part of his Pakistan support network.
Investigations into a mobile phone used by Bin Laden’s courier are said to have divulged contact with the group, according to a New York Times report.
The phone was recovered during the 2 May US raid that killed both men.
Although banned there, analysts say HuM has links with Pakistani intelligence.
“Al-Qaeda had their own discipline, their own thinking, their own organisation. We have never ever been in touch with Osama,” a spokesman for the group told the BBC.
The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan says that it is difficult to establish if the group has had recent contact with al-Qaeda, but adds that it certainly has a long history of co-operation with al-Qaeda.
Our correspondent says the latest claims come at a time when Pakistan’s military and intelligence services are under increasing pressure from the West, where there are suspicions that some elements of Pakistan’s security establishment provide backing to militant groups and may even have helped protect Bin Laden.
This may be one reason why the group is denying any links with al-Qaeda, our correspondent says.
The report comes days after a Pakistani brigadier serving at the army’s main headquarters was detained for allegedly having contacts with the banned extremist group Hizb-ut Tahrir. He denies the allegation.
Four majors in the Pakistani army were also questioned for involvement with banned militant organisations.
Dean Nelson,The Telegraph’s South Asia Editor, says the find is significant:
According the New York Times, American officials said the HuM commanders bin Laden’s courier had called had in turn been in regular contact with Pakistani intelligence officials.
They have no proof that HuM figures had guarded bin Laden, or that their commanders had been in contact with ISI officials in connection with the al-Qaeda leader. But they do now know that the man charged with guarding bin Laden and conveying his orders to his commanders had strong relationships with an ISI-backed terror network.It raises yet more questions of the ISI’s discipline and the true allegiance of some of its officials. Earlier this week, it emerged that four army majors had close links with a militant group which shares al-Qaeda’s aim of recreating an Islamic caliphate, while the US trial of Tahawwur Rana earlier this month revealed over-lapping relationships between the ISI, the Lashkar e Taiba group which carried out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, and al-Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri.
These relationships do not appear to be sanctioned by its army chiefs, but they do uncover a second front in the war on terror in the heart of Pakistan’s security forces.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.