CHAK SHAH MOHAMMAD, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani security officials reacted with scepticism on Sunday to a U.S. assertion that Osama bin Laden was actively engaged in directing his far-flung network from his compound in Abbottabad where he was killed on May 2.
Washington said on Saturday that, based on a trove of documents and computer equipment seized in the raid, bin Laden’s hideout north of Islamabad was an “active command and control centre” for al Qaeda where he was involved in plotting future attacks on the United States.
“It sounds ridiculous,” said a senior intelligence official. “It doesn’t sound like he was running a terror network.”
Analysts have long maintained that, years before bin Laden’s death, al Qaeda had fragmented into a decentralised group that operated tactically without him.
“It’s bullshit,” said a senior Pakistani security official, when quizzed on a U.S. intelligence official’s assertion that bin Laden had been “active in operational planning and in driving tactical decisions” of the Islamist militant group from his secret home in the town of Abbottabad
Is there anything the White House tells the truth about?
Skepticism about what our government says should go hand in hand with skepticism about what the Pakistani government says.
Everything I have heard about Osama the past week indicates to me that he has was completely marginalized. The Pakistani story is far more believable.
The Pakistani story is consistent with a story that serves their interest to tell.
Packman – I’ll agree with “high skepticism warranted” toward reports of all origins, but
It stretches the bounds of credulity to imagine UBL was engaged in “active command and control” when his communication was limited to a courier or two
Not exactly nimble
True, but we also know that he was burning his trash. This is obviously connected to an international system of smoke signals.