ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, the ISI, has said it is
embarrassed by its failures on al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
An ISI official told the BBC the compound in Abbottabad where Bin Laden was
killed by US forces on Sunday had been raided in 2003.
It was believed an al-Qaeda operative, Abu Faraj al-Libi, was there.
But since then "the compound was not on our radar, it is an embarrassment for
the ISI", the official said. "We’re good, but we’re not God." He gave new
details of the raid, saying Bin Laden’s young daughter had said she saw her
father shot.
The ISI official also gave new or differing accounts of some of the events of
Sunday’s raid. They included: There were 17-18 people in the compound at the
time of the attack. The Americans took away one person still alive, possibly a
Bin Laden son. Those who survived the attack included a wife, a daughter and
eight to nine other children, not apparently Bin Laden’s; all had their hands
tied by the American. The surviving Yemeni wife said they had moved to the
compound a few months ago. Bin Laden’s daughter, aged 12 or 13, saw her father
shot The official said it was thought the Americans wanted to take away the
surviving women and children but had to abandon the plan when one of the
helicopters malfunctioned.
The US has not commented on anyone it captured or had planned to capture,
other than saying it had taken Bin Laden’s body. The ISI official said the
organisation had recovered some documents from the compound.
The CIA is already said to be going through a large number of hard drives and
storage devices seized in the raid.
White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan said there had been
concern Pakistani forces would deploy to counter the US Navy Seal team
conducting the raid but it had avoided any confrontation.
The ISI official said: "We were totally caught by surprise. They were in and
out before we could react."
Our correspondent says residents near the compound in Abbottabad reported
that Pakistani soldiers had asked them to switch off their lights an hour before
the attack, but the ISI official said this was not true and that it had no
advance knowledge of the raid. Online
