Musharraf knew Bin Laden in Pakistan: Who Else Did?

Pakistan’s former ISI chief General Ziauddin Khawaja, also known as Ziauddin Butt (head of the ISI, 1997-1999), claims that then President Pervez Musharraf knew about Osama bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad. Even if this news is true, it is not shocking. What the world would be eager to know is whether the then American President George W. Bush, the CIA and the Pentagon were in the know about this ugly fact.

President Pervez Musharraf was not only the favourite of President Bush and the British Prime Minister Tony Blair but also a poster boy of the American and the British media. While the world watched helplessly, these powerful people joined Musharraf in spinning what now appears to be a web of lies.

In fact, Musharraf now lives safely in London, away from Pakistan’s growing litany of protests and allegations against him. Musharraf is seen as an accomplice in the murders of (former premier) Benazir Bhutto and (Baloch nationalist leader) Akbar Bugti. See here…

Many suspect that it was perhaps important for the USA to keep Osama bin Laden safe and alive to justify the continued presence of the American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. That is why the importance of being Musharraf.

The Daily Beast reports: “Ever since the Navy SEALs found Osama bin Laden hiding in Abbottabad, Pakistan, less than a mile from the country’s national military academy, the question haunting American relations with Pakistan has been: who knew he was there? How did the most-wanted man in human history find a hideout in one of Pakistan’s most exclusive military cantonment cities and live there for five years without the Pakistani spy service finding him? Or did it know all along?

“Here is what the former spy chief Ziauddin claims: The safe house in Abbottabad was made to order for bin Laden by another Pakistani intelligence officer, Brig. Gen. Ijaz Shah, who was the ISI bureau head in Lahore when Musharraf staged his coup.

“Musharraf later made him head of the intelligence bureau, the ISI’s rival in Pakistan’s spy-versus-spy wars. Ziauddin says Ijaz Shah was responsible for setting up bin Laden in Abbottabad, ensuring his safety and keeping him hidden from the outside. And Ziauddin says Musharraf knew all about it.” More here…

This story gets murkier here. The Express Tribune wrote: “(ISI spy chief) Ziauddin Butt, allegedly said that Bin Laden’s safe house in Abbottabad ‘was made to order’ by Brigadier Ijaz Shah, a former head of the Intelligence Bureau.

“Ziauddin says Ijaz Shah was responsible for setting up Bin Laden in Abbottabad, ensuring his safety and keeping him hidden from the outside. And Ziauddin says Musharraf knew all about it…

“Shah, who the assassinated premier Benazir Bhutto had linked to a failed plot to kill her, has been closely linked to Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born Kashmiri terrorist who was imprisoned in India in 1994 for kidnapping three Britons and an American. Saeed was part of the plot to kidnap journalist Daniel Pearl and turned himself in to Shah.”
More here…