During an interview on Al Jazeera, speaking on the Abbotabad operation conducted by US forces in May 2011 that killed Osama bin Laden, former DG ISI, Lt-Gen (r) Asad Durrani said, “I cannot say exactly what happened but my assessment […] was it is quite possible that they [the ISI] did not know but it was more probable that they did. And the idea was that at the right time, his location would be revealed. And the right time would have been, when you can get the necessary quid pro quo — if you have someone like Osama bin Laden, you are not going to simply hand him over to the United States.” Mr Durrani claimed that he didn’t have any first-hand information but he was merely expressing his opinions derived from a personal assessment of the situation.
What Mr Durrani views as highly probable is highly unlikely to have occurred. While it is certainly possible that the military and the ISI were aware of OBL’s presence and hiding him from the rest of the world, they did not share the information with the US in exchange of “how to bring the Afghan problem to an end”, as Mr Durrani claims. Till now, most of the debate inside Pakistan has focused on two possibilities: Pakistan showed extreme incompetence and was not at all aware of OBL’s presence, which is pretty much the official stance. The other possibility is that of Pakistan’s complicity in hiding OBL to the detriment of US and allies. Mr Durrani puts forth a third possibility: Pakistan’s complicity in the Abbotabad operation conducted by the US. This version doesn’t make Pakistan appear inept or in cahoots with al-Qaeda chief. It makes the military look like a reluctant ally of the West, caught between international obligations and local politics, forced to maneuver and deceive the Pakistani populace to somehow make it all work.
Mr Durrani, for whatever reason, may wish to give that impression but his ‘assessment’ of the situation doesn’t make much sense. Mr Durrani presupposes that only Pakistan was aware of OBL’s location. In that case, the ISI or the military could have simply delivered him to US forces in Afghanistan instead of asking them to conduct an operation in Abbotabad. Why was it necessary for the US forces to come in and get him from Abbotabad when one one but the Pakistani military knew that he was there? The whole show would’ve made sense if the Pakistan’s 200m people knew – they didn’t – who Mr Durrani claims were the reason behind keeping everything under wraps. How does Mr Durrani explain Dr Shakil Afridi’s fruitful fake vaccination campaign, his arrest and imprisonment later? He also failed to share what sort of an agreement pertaining to Afghanistan was reached as a result of Pakistan’s alleged cooperation? Why would the US feel obligated to honour a deal with Pakistan if the latter is deliberately hiding the world’s most wanted man waiting to “get the necessary quid pro quo”? We may never know exactly what transpired, but it is probably not what Mr Durrani suggests.