Khaleej Times Online > INTERNATIONAL
Pakistani who aided bin Laden
(AP)
4 May 2011, 5:44 PM
ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan A doctor who sold a piece of the land where Osama bin
Laden's final hideout was built said the buyer, a Pakistani who apparently
sheltered the al-Qaida chief, was a "modest, humble" man who did not seem to be
a militant.
As Pakistan sought to counter suspicions it had been harboring bin Laden,
details emerged Wednesday about the small group of men who looked after the
al-Qaida chief in this northwestern town before he was killed by US commandos.
Chief among them was a man known as Arshad Khan, who neighbors said was one of
two Pakistani men living in the house. Property records obtained by The
Associated Press show Mohammad Arshad bought adjoining plots in four stages
between 2004 and 2005 for $48,000. The two appear to be the same person, and
the names may be fake.
The doctor, Qazi Mahfooz Ul Haq, said he sold a plot of land to Arshad in 2005.
He said the buyer was a sturdily built man who had a tuft of hair under his
lower lip. He spoke with an accent that sounded like it was from Waziristan, a
tribal region close to Afghanistan that is home to many al-Qaida operatives.
"He was a very simple, modest, humble type of man" who was "very interested" in
buying the land for "an uncle," the doctor said.
Arshad may have been one of the five people killed in the raid including bin
Laden and one of his sons. US officials have said bin Laden's most trusted
courier, and the courier's wife and brother also died.
It is still unclear what the connection was between Arshad and the courier, who
eventually led the US to bin Laden, or if they were in fact the same person.
US officials have identified the courier as Sheikh Abu Ahmed, a Pakistani man
born in Kuwait who went by the nom de guerre Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. They
obtained his name from detainees held in secret CIA prison sites in Eastern
Europe and vetted it with top al-Qaida operatives like Sept. 11 mastermind
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The courier was so important to al-Qaida that he was tapped by Mohammed to
shepherd the man who was to have been the 20th hijacker through computer
training needed for the Sept. 11 attacks, according to newly released documents
from Guantanamo Bay interrogations.
The courier allegedly trained Maad al-Qahtani at an internet cafe in the
southern Pakistani city of Karachi in July 2001 so that he could communicate by
email with Mohammed Atta, the Sept. 11 financier and one of the 19 hijackers,
who was already in the United States.
But al-Qahtani proved to be a poor student and was ultimately denied entry to
the US when he raised suspicion among immigration officials.
The Guantanamo documents also revealed that the courier might have been one of
the men who accompanied bin Laden to Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan in
December 2001 just weeks before the Taliban's final surrender.
Al-Kuwaiti inadvertently led intelligence officials to bin Laden when he used a
telephone last year to talk with someone the US had wiretapped. The CIA then
tracked al-Kuwaiti back to the walled compound in Abbottabad.
Bin Laden was living in a large house not far from a military academy in
Abbottabad, an army town that is just two hours drive from the capital. That he
lived there for up to six years undetected has reignited long-standing
suspicions that the country, nominally a US ally, is playing a double game.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said anyone who claimed his
country hid bin Laden was "color blind."
During a visit to Paris, Gilani said that Pakistan shared intelligence with
numerous countries in the fight against terrorism and had "excellent
cooperation" with the United States. He said that "if we have failed it means
everybody failed," and an investigation would be ordered.
Some US lawmakers have suggested that Washington cut or terminate American aid
to Pakistan as a result. But others are advising caution Pakistan has nuclear
arms, is already unstable and the US needs its support to withdraw from
Afghanistan.
Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the
discovery of bin Laden so close to an army installation was "embarrassing to
them" but that institutional entities like the army, intelligence service and
government likely didn't know about bin Laden's presence.
Meanwhile, Indonesia said its most wanted terrorist suspect was in Abbottabad
to meet Osama bin Laden when he was arrested there early this year. The remark
Defense Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro is the strongest indication yet that the
arrest of Patek, an al-Qaida operative wanted for the 2002 Bali nightclub
bombings, may have been connected to the bin Laden raid.
Patek was injured in a raid by Pakistani intelligence agents on a house in
Abbottabad on Jan. 25, but news of arrest only leaked out in late March. He was
traveling with his Filipino wife. He is currently being held in Pakistan, but
may be turned over to Indonesia.
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