Kayani, Pasha & Taj Prime Suspects In The Eyes Of US
Sachin Parashar | TNN
New Delhi: The US is turning the heat on Pakistan’s ISI as it tries to establish the identity of those who s h e l t e re d Osama bin Laden in the g a r r i s o n town of Abbottabad. And, going by reports in the US media and assessments made by Indian experts, the needle of suspicion is pointing not just ISI boss Shuja Pasha but also two of his predecessors, one of whom is none other than the highly India-centric Pakistan army chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani.
Kayani was the ISI chief when Osama was said to have shifted to Abbottabad in 2005. Pasha is now said to be under pressure to quit as ISI failed to detect Osama’s presence for almost three years under him. Kayani’s successor in the ISI, Nadeem Taj who took over in October 2007, is the third and an equally strong suspect. Known as the most rabid anti-US and anti-India boss the agency has had in the recent past, Taj was eased out of ISI after a 10-month tenure in 2008 allegedly under pressure from the US.
“In any inquiry regarding collusion between the ISI and Osama bin Laden since 2005, which enabled OBL to live in Abbottabad, the main suspicion has to be on Nadeem Taj followed by Pasha and Kayani,” security expert B Raman said.
It was during Taj’s tenure as ISI chief that the agency used David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana for reconnaissance missions in India and during which the July 2008 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul took place. It is significant that Taj was heading the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad before taking over as ISI chief. US has sought information about those senior officials who worked closely with militants in the past and Taj’s name is likely to figure right at the top. As former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal put it, though, it is inconceivable that Osama continued to live right under the nose of the military establishment without the knowledge of Kayani who headed ISI in 2005.
Hundred jihadis waiting to get into J&K
The line of control (LoC) could turn red hot once again. Even as disclosures by Guantanamo Bay detainees show al Qaida had plans to bomb an Indian airliner and that Pakistan Army and ISI have for long been directly involved in training and directing anti-India terrorists, Indian security forces are bracing for a hot summer in Kashmir and elsewhere. Latest intelligence inputs show over 100 terrorists are waiting at the launch pads: along the LoC to infiltrate into J&K, with another 700-800 militants holed up in different terror-training camps in Pakistan. P 8
Hideout nerve
centre for Qaida
Osama’s Abbottabad hideout was an active command and control centre of al Qaida, the US has said, releasing five videos of the terror kingpin seized during the daring raid on his compound in Pakistan that showed how he jealously guarded his image. Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound was an active command and control centre for al Qaida’s leader. P 15 ‘Pakistan will not reveal those who helped Osama bin Laden’
The US has now trained its sights on finding out those involved in giving shelter to Osama bin Laden who was killed in a raid in Abbottabad in Pakistan by the US. Going by US media reports Pakistan army chief Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kayani is one of the suspects. “Kayani would have known and so would have Pasha. One can’t dispense with reason and logic simply because there is no documentary evidence to prove it,” former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal told TOI. He added that he did not see anything relevant coming out of the US exercise to identify those who helped Osama hide in Abbottabad because the Pakistanis were not going to give any “self-incriminating” information to the US.
‘The New York Times’ earlier reported about the growing suspicion in the US security establishment that at least somebody in ISI was aware of Osama’s whereabouts. It said the US was frustrated as even in the past, Pakistani military and intelligence had failed to identify those ISI officials who had worked closely with Osama since the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. TNN
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