Read Full Commission Report here in PDF
On
the night of May 1, 2011, US special forces launched a raid deep into
Pakistani territory to capture or kill al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
On President Barack Obama’s orders, US soldiers flew via helicopter to
the Pakistani army garrison town of Abbottabad, where their intelligence
indicated he was hiding out. In the process of raiding the compound,
Bin Laden and four others were killed. Several people were wounded.
Pakistan’s
military and political leaders were furious at the unilateral action by
the United States, and set up a Commission to examine both “how the US
was able to execute a hostile military mission which lasted around three
hours deep inside Pakistan”, and how Pakistan’s “intelligence
establishment apparently had no idea that an international fugitive of
the renown or notoriety of [Osama bin Laden] was residing in
[Abbottabad]”.
In an Al Jazeera exclusive, the results of the Abbottabad Commission are now being made public.
It
was charged with establishing whether the failures of the Pakistani
government and military were due to incompetence, or complicity. It was
given overarching investigative powers, and, in the course of its
inquiry, it interviewed more than 201 witnesses - including members of
Bin Laden’s own family, the chief of Pakistan’s spy agency, and other
senior provincial, federal and military officials.
The
Commission’s 336-page report is scathing, holding both politicians and
the military responsible for “gross incompetence”, leading to
“collective failures” that allowed Bin Laden to escape detection, and
the United States to perpetrate “an act of war”.
The report, as Commission members had feared, was kept secret. Until now.
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