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{"id":15719,"date":"2014-03-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=717"},"modified":"2014-03-22T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-22T00:00:00","slug":"pakistan-and-bin-laden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/03\/pakistan-and-bin-laden\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan and bin Laden"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Gall again,\u00a0reporting\u00a0<\/a>on Pakistan\u2019s cozy relationship with bin Laden:<\/p>\n

She found evidence of \u201cregular correspondence between Bin Laden and a string of militant leaders who must have known he was living in Pakistan, including Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a pro-Kashmiri group that has also been active in Afghanistan, and Mullah Omar of the Taliban. Saeed and Omar are two of the ISI\u2019s most important and loyal militant leaders. Both are protected by the agency. Both cooperate closely with it, restraining their followers from attacking the Pakistani state and coordinating with Pakistan\u2019s greater strategic plans. Any correspondence the two men had with Bin Laden would probably have been known to their ISI handlers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gall continues, \u201cBin Laden did not rely only on correspondence. He occasionally traveled to meet aides and fellow militants, one Pakistani security official told me. \u2018Osama was moving around,\u2019 he said, adding that he heard so from jihadi sources. \u2018You cannot run a movement without contact with people.\u2019 Bin Laden traveled in plain sight, his convoys always knowingly waved through any security checkpoints.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2009, Bin Laden reportedly traveled to Pakistan\u2019s tribal areas to meet with the militant leader Qari Saifullah Akhtar. Informally referred to as the \u2018father of jihad,\u2019 Akhtar is considered one of the ISI\u2019s most valuable assets. According to a Pakistani intelligence source, he was the commander accused of trying to kill Bhutto on her return in 2007, and he is credited with driving Mullah Omar out of Afghanistan on the back of a motorbike in 2001 and moving Bin Laden out of harm\u2019s way just minutes before American missile strikes on his camp in 1998. After the Sept. 11 attacks, he was detained several times in Pakistan. Yet he was never prosecuted and was quietly released each time by the ISI.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"