Pakistani brigadier who died in Britain named as the US informant behind Laden's killing
Kounteya Sinha,TNN | May 20, 2015, 09.26 PM IST
LONDON: A Pakistani army brigadier who has lived in Britain since 1979 but died of cancer last year has been named as the informant whose tip-off led to the killing of the world's most wanted man — Osama Bin Laden in 2011.
This has caused an outrage among his family members who say that Retired Brigadier Usman Khalid was politically very vocal and was therefore becoming an easy target of the present Pakistani government.
An US journalist Seymour Hersh recently wrote in the London Review of Books that contrary to Barack Obama's claims that CIA pieced together intelligence to track down Laden, it was Pakistan's ISI who had been holding the al-Qaida leader prisoner in Abbottabad.
Hersh also hinted that it was the former Pakistani army officer who sold information of Bin Laden's hideout to the CIA in exchange for a $25 million bounty and the promise for US citizenship for him and his family. The allegation has outraged Brigadier Khalid's family in London.
His son, Abid Khalid said to the British media "My father hadn't visited the USA since 1976 and had lived in the UK since 1979 so there was no question of him or his family getting American citizenship. He had no contact with the CIA and knew nothing about Osama Bin Laden, other than what he read in the newspapers, just like everyone else. He was politically very vocal, so he was an easy target".
"It simply doesn't make sense. At the time that this was supposed to have happened, he was suffering from cancer and in and out of hospital. My father was an honourable and patriotic man".
Reports which emerged say that it was Brigadier Khalid who persuaded Pakistan doctor - Dr Shakhil Ahmed to carry out a fake polio vaccination drive as part of a CIA ploy to acquire DNA evidence of Bin Laden.
Abid Khalid said his father "was also a caring, family man and would be horrified to be linked to the fake polio vaccination programme. He would have been devastated to have been linked to anything which would put the lives of innocent people, especially children at risk, especially in the country he loved".
Bin Laden was killed in a US Navy Seals raid in May 2011.
Brigadier Khalid had come to UK under a political asylum after serving in the Pakistani army for 25 years, in protest at the execution in 1979 of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Brigadier Khalid died last year of cancer at the age of 79.
Hersh had written "It's been four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama's first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan's army and ISI were not told of the raid in advance. This is false".
"The most blatant lie was that Pakistan's two most senior military leaders — General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of the army staff, and General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director general of the ISI — were never informed of the US mission," Hersh added.
Kounteya Sinha,TNN | May 20, 2015, 09.26 PM IST
LONDON: A Pakistani army brigadier who has lived in Britain since 1979 but died of cancer last year has been named as the informant whose tip-off led to the killing of the world's most wanted man — Osama Bin Laden in 2011.
This has caused an outrage among his family members who say that Retired Brigadier Usman Khalid was politically very vocal and was therefore becoming an easy target of the present Pakistani government.
An US journalist Seymour Hersh recently wrote in the London Review of Books that contrary to Barack Obama's claims that CIA pieced together intelligence to track down Laden, it was Pakistan's ISI who had been holding the al-Qaida leader prisoner in Abbottabad.
Hersh also hinted that it was the former Pakistani army officer who sold information of Bin Laden's hideout to the CIA in exchange for a $25 million bounty and the promise for US citizenship for him and his family. The allegation has outraged Brigadier Khalid's family in London.
His son, Abid Khalid said to the British media "My father hadn't visited the USA since 1976 and had lived in the UK since 1979 so there was no question of him or his family getting American citizenship. He had no contact with the CIA and knew nothing about Osama Bin Laden, other than what he read in the newspapers, just like everyone else. He was politically very vocal, so he was an easy target".
"It simply doesn't make sense. At the time that this was supposed to have happened, he was suffering from cancer and in and out of hospital. My father was an honourable and patriotic man".
Reports which emerged say that it was Brigadier Khalid who persuaded Pakistan doctor - Dr Shakhil Ahmed to carry out a fake polio vaccination drive as part of a CIA ploy to acquire DNA evidence of Bin Laden.
Abid Khalid said his father "was also a caring, family man and would be horrified to be linked to the fake polio vaccination programme. He would have been devastated to have been linked to anything which would put the lives of innocent people, especially children at risk, especially in the country he loved".
Bin Laden was killed in a US Navy Seals raid in May 2011.
Brigadier Khalid had come to UK under a political asylum after serving in the Pakistani army for 25 years, in protest at the execution in 1979 of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. Brigadier Khalid died last year of cancer at the age of 79.
Hersh had written "It's been four years since a group of US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden in a night raid on a high-walled compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The killing was the high point of Obama's first term, and a major factor in his re-election. The White House still maintains that the mission was an all-American affair, and that the senior generals of Pakistan's army and ISI were not told of the raid in advance. This is false".
"The most blatant lie was that Pakistan's two most senior military leaders — General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, chief of the army staff, and General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director general of the ISI — were never informed of the US mission," Hersh added.
