This undated file photo shows al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. (Photo: AP)
Osama bin Laden lived undetected in Pakistan for nine years before he was killed by U.S. forces according to leaked Pakistani government report that blasts the country's civilian and military leadership for 'gross incompetence' over the bin Laden affair.
It finds that Pakistan's intelligence establishment had 'closed the book' on bin Laden by 2005, and was no longer actively pursuing intelligence that could lead to his capture.
The 336-page Abbottabad Commission report, obtained by Al Jazeera, blasts the government and military for a 'national disaster' over its handling of bin Laden and calls on the leadership to apologize to the people of Pakistan for their 'dereliction of duty.'
The report, never released publicly, was ordered after the May 1, 2011 raid by U.S. special forces on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. The al-Qaeda leader was killed and his body removed during the raid.
According to Al Jazeera, the report finds the government's intention in conducting the inquiry was likely aimed at 'regime continuance, when the regime is desperate to distance itself from any responsibility for the national disaster that occurred on its watch.' It says that the inquiry was likely 'a reluctant response to an overwhelming public and parliamentary demand.'
The report blames 'Government Implosion Syndrome' for lack of intelligence on Bin Laden's nine-year residence in Pakistan and its response to the U.S. raid.
Al Jazeera quotes the report as saying the commissions finds that 'culpable negligence and incompetence at almost all levels of government can more or less be conclusively established.'
The reports focuses intently on the night of the raid, interviewing bin Laden's family and members of the household extensively.
The report said accounts differ as to whether the al-Qeda leader was killed by the first shot fired at him when he went to the bedroom door as soldiers came up the stairs or later when they stormed the room.
Pakistani police stand guard beside a sealed main gate leading to the hideout house of slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 4, 2011.(Photo: Aamir Qureshi AFP/Getty Images)
'He did not use his wife or daughter as a shield to protect himself,' the report says. 'He was not armed when he was shot.'
One of his daughters, identified as Surnayya, told the commmision that she saw one of the U.S. helicopters land from her window and immediately rushed upstairs to bin Laden's room.
'Although she did not see her father fall, she saw him on the floor,' the report says. 'He had been hit in the forehead and she knew he was dead. His face was 'clear' and recognizable. According to her, blood flowed 'backwards over his head.' However, because of the dark she could not see very clearly. The American soldiers asked her to identify the body. She said, 'my father.''
In summing up its assessment of the killing of bin Laden, the commission spares few words:
The whole episode of the U.S. assassination mission of May 2, 2011 and the Pakistan government's response before, during and after appears in large part to be a story of complacency, ignorance, negligence, incompetence, riresponsiblity and possibly worse at various levels inside and outside the government.
Among other findings:
*Bin Laden entered Pakistan in mid-2002 after narrowly escaping capture in the battle of Tora Bora in Afghanistan. Over nine years, he moved to various places inside the country, including South Waziristan and northern Swat Valley.
*In Swat, the al-Qaeda leader reportedly met with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, in early 2003. About a month later, KSM was captured in Rawalpindi in a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation, and Bin Laden fled the area.
*Bin Laden, along with two of his wives and several children and grandchildren, moved into the custom-built compound in Abbottabad, a military garrison town, in 2005 and lived there until the U.S. raid.
*The presence of a CIA support network to help track down bin Laden without the Pakistani establishment's knowledge was 'a case of nothing less than a collective and sustained dereliction of duty by the political, military and intelligence leadership of the country.'
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