The Abbotabad attack on May 2^nd put many Pakistanis in shame. They felt like this back in 1971 when half of the country was lost and over 90 thousands Pak army surrendered. But there is a difference between the two feelings of shame. This time, without losing part of the country, the state sovereignty was blighted dropping the anvil on the government and army/ISI. In this article I will highlight on three points. First, was OBL a sectarian fanatic like his followers in the Taliban?; Second are there any discrepancies in the findings produced by the White House and our army team; Third what could be the possible fallout of this attack.

When Gen Kayani took over as Army Chief, the army image was at the lowest ebb because of Gen. Musharaf ‘s policies. Gen. Kayani cleansed this image in a short span of time. His success against the Taliban in the Swat operation, his role in helping the victims of the floods, and his stand on the Kerry Logar Bill or presentation on war on terror in Brussels proved that the Pak army can achieve its goals militarily, socially and politically. He also played the role of a wise man in the restoration of Ch Iftikhar as CJP. However, when the newly liberated judiciary started interfering in the malpractices of executive, some important political figures started feeling the pinch. According to news items Mr. Asif Ali Zardari had complained to the Americans about army interference in his work. The army which already had unhealthy relationship with a few opposition parties became soft target of the government.

The relationship between CIA and ISI was strained starting in December 2010 when a federal court in America made ISI a party in a case pertaining to the Bombay terrorist attack of November 2008. Obama’s government did not help ISI in the case, infuriating the agency. A few weeks later, Karim Khan from North Waziristan filed a lawsuit in Peshawar High Court against the CIA station chief Jonathan Banks, on charges of providing operational guidance for the drone attacks which killed his son and brother. Americans saw ISI’s hand in the case and hurriedly retreated Mr.Banks from Pakistan. As if that was not enough Raymond Davies arrest put Obama, his administration and CIA on the mat. The blame fell on ISI. The world saw ISI playing a superior spy game beating its American counterpart and for that matter the Obama administration. After a day long exclusive meeting between the army chiefs of the two countries in Oman, Raymond Davies was released. The army/ISI which always had cozy relationship with the Americans became the hard target and the Americans started waiting for an opportune time to hit back.

According to reports, the precursor to May 2^nd episode started when ISI passed on information to CIA about infrequent suspicious messages on financial transactions through a SIM. One of the messages was sent from the house where OBL lived. It was then that CIA agents who were given visas by Hussain Haqqani without ISI clearance rented a nearby house and started collecting human intelligence about the occupants. Once they confirmed the high valued target could be OBL, they started waiting for the time to attack. May the 2^nd turned out to be perfect for the following reasons;

• It was this very day eight years ago when George Bush announced ‘mission accomplished’;

• The deadline for the passage of American budget is on August the 2^nd.. Because of strong Republican opposition its failing could adversely affect war on terror in Afghanistan.

• The Al-Qaeda attacks in Afghanistan increase from this month onwards;

• Obama’s rating was falling rapidly;

• The planned American reduction of forces in July was coming closer;

• The performance record of ISI vis-a-vis CIA was spiralling up.

A well designed plan was executed excellently by Navy Seals achieving most of the targets throwing the image of Pak army and ISI in the gutter. The rest is history. According to news reports the CIA personnel who rented the nearby house have vacated the property leaving no evidence behind.

Irrespective of whether OBL was killed on May 2^nd or died before, one thing is clear that he is officially dead confirmed by his own group, Al-Qaeda. After this background, let me take up the first point, whether OBL was a sectarian fanatic Muslim or not. A good number of Pakistanis believe he was not. According to those who met him say that he kept a delicate balance between his living in Afghanistan as guest of Taliban and their sectarian beliefs putting him in a precarious position. They say he tried to help Taliban government in business deals with foreign governments and large corporations. After interfering in a major oil deal between Taliban and a known US corporation his relation with the Americans deteriorated from bad to worse. He announced Jihad against America and promised to make Americans scared all over the world snatching away the feeling of freedom they like flaunting. In doing so he wanted to become a legend in Islamic history. Time will tell whether he succeeded in his aims.

On the second point; so far, we have seen many discrepancies in reports issued by the White House. Enough is written on that and the list keeps piling up everyday. As reported, the military investigative team is busy collecting its own findings. Let us wait for those findings and see if more discrepancies surface. Most probably the report will try to blacken the picture painted by the Americans. But one thing makes political sense that both CIA and ISI know that they need each other in the war on terror just like American political forces want Pakistan on their side in this war. At the same time the Americans would like to keep Pakistan and its army under pressure at a level that it does not go out of hand and erupt as street protests in the likes of the Middle East and North Africa. That would be a disaster for the American interests in the region.

The third point pertains to the possible fallout of May 2^nd incident which could take the shape of;

• The army clearing its image through its own investigation and recover from its fallen grace;

• Resurfacing of workable relation between ISI and CIA.;

• Heating up political tension between politicians;

• The government nosediving in popularity especially after the budget;

• Increase in the drone attacks;

• Increase in the terrorist attacks;

• The fear of a technocrat government recently expressed by Asif Ali Zardari becoming a reality. In other words, the Abbotabad hammer might fall on the political government. After all, in past the Ojhri camp disaster fell on Juneju’s government and the Kargil episode fell on Nawaz Sharif’s government. The Americans usually prefer army over the political set-ups in Pakistan. But keeping the present global environment in mind, they do not want to see army taking over the driving seat. So they wouldn’t mind seeing the May 2^nd attack on Osama becoming a prelude to a much talked about technocrat government provided the process is carried out without violating the Constitution of Pakistan.

The end

The Abbottabad episode of 2 May 2011 provides the opportunity to restore our national sovereignty and establish new level of relationship with our immediate neighbors and countries beyond. “It is a blessing in disguise” to restore national honour and dignity. In fact, the 2/5 episode was a hoax and a big lie, the same as 9/11 episode was a big lie for an excuse to launch the Crusade against the Muslim World.

Osama’s look-alike prisoner from Bagram, was picked-up and brought to Abbottabad and killed in cold blood, in front of his family members, who were living there. In fact, Osama had been killed in Afghanistan some time back and his body may still be lying in a mortuary in Afghanistan. They showed a bullet-ridden picture of Osama, which was two years old and another photo which had no resemblance with him. His body was dumped into the sea, so hurriedly to hide the crime, committed in such a clumsy manner. The 2/5 episode was the finale of the 9/11 lies and was meant to achieve three main objectives: (One) With mission accomplished, Obama was to gain political advantage in the forthcoming elections; (Two) To find an excuse for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. (Three) To defame the Pakistan government, the Pakistan Armed Forces and the ISI. On all the three counts Obama has gained and Pakistan now is reeling under pressure, blaming its own Armed Forces and the ISI, for the failure to safeguard territorial sovereignty, not knowing that we ourselves have pillaged Pakistan’s sovereignty as a matter of political expediency. It’s a sad story but needs to be remembered.

With the first military take-over of Ayub Khan in 1958, the American entered Pakistan and established their tentacles and got so entrenched, that they were able to boot-out Ayub Khan, when found “getting too big for his boots. Ironically a political movement was launched to replace him with Yahya Khan, who became the catalyst for the dismemberment of Pakistan. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, took over as the first elected Prime Minister of Pakistan. He was a visionary leader and a statesman, and didn’t fit into the ‘American agenda of Great Game on the Global Chess-Board.’ Thus he became an unwanted leader, because he opened the way to China; he gave the idea to King Faisal to assume the leadership of the Muslim World, and he laid the foundation for Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Therefore, he had to be punished and “made a horrible example” at the hands of military dictator and a compliant judiciary.

General Zia joined the American war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1980-88. During this period, the CIA established a vast spy net-work in Pakistan, gaining access into our national institutions, the media and the civil society. After the Soviet retreat, Americans turned their back on Afghanistan and Pakistan, denied power sharing to the Taliban and induced a civil war and got Zia removed from the scene, because he was promoting the Mujahideen cause. Benazir Bhutto took over in 1988, and soon came under pressure to “clip the ISI wings” because the Americans were awed by the ISI’s professional prowess of defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan. The ISI was ruthlessly purged and Pakistan lost its eyes and ears into Afghanistan. In 1998, when Nawaz Sharif carried out atomic explosions in response to the Indians, he became “an undesirable person”. A political movement was started, supporting military take over in 1999. This was the time, the Americans were ready to launch the Crusade against the Muslim World and played the 9/11 drama. Musharraf was pressurized to accept all the seven conditionalities forced on him. He decided to join the war against our brotherly Muslim country and subsequently allowed the American marines and the CIA to monitor the entire Pak-Afghan borders and pulled-out ISI from these areas, thus bartering away the territorial sovereignty of Pakistan. By this time RAW had already established its spy network in Afghanistan and joined hands with the CIA, infesting Pakistan’s entire border region with enemy agents and provocateurs, and by 2005, succeeded in turning the Afghan war on Pakistan. The recent Raymond Davis arrest has revealed that the CIA and RAW had penetrated deep into Pakistan and were responsible for insurgency in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa provinces and most of the terror attacks taking place in Pakistan. Therefore our government rightly decided to reclaim the lost territory, using the Pakistan Army and the ISI. They are in action, and have earned the ire of US government, who are feeling so uncomfortable.

It is interesting to note that for 9/11 episode the Americans did not blame their armed forces or the intelligence agencies for their failure to protect the country from the catastrophe. Similarly, after the attack in Mumbai in 2009, the Indians did not blame their armed forces or the intelligence agencies. Rather, they pointed their finger directly towards Pakistan, while the Americans put the entire blame on Osama and Al-Qaeda. No wonder, the CIA and RAW joined by sympathizers in Pakistan, now are putting the blame on Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI, who have sacrificed so much in blood and sweat, to safeguard national sovereignty.

The Americans made a monster of Osama and Al-Qaeda, who, after 1990, in fact had no role in Afghanistan, nor in Pakistan. The Al-Qaeda may have carried-out a few suicide missions against American targets, while sitting idle in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, but the western media blamed them for most of the terror acts in Afghanistan and the region, “to create an Enemy” and to demonise the freedom movement of the Afghans. In fact, after 9/11, Osama had been hiding in caves and culverts and had lost his clout and that is the reason that on his death, there has been no visible reaction. Osama’s myth, so assiduously created, has exploded.

The 2/5 episode “is a blessing in disguise” for our government, the Armed Force and the intelligence agencies, to act in concert and weed-out enemy agents and provocateurs, ruthlessly. In fact a kind of “large scale fumigation campaign would be necessary to eliminate the termites, eating into our very foundation.” The process has already begun in Balochistan and must be expanded to cover entire Pakistan. Once our national sovereignty is restored, it will provide the foundation to establish, meaningful relationship with our neighbors and countries beyond. In fact, a complete re-think is needed, to re-structure our relationship with the United States of America, in particular.

The Elegy. The Pakistani nation has had such high expectations from the democratic government to deliver a sovereign parliament and an independent judiciary –the guarantors of national sovereignty, but unfortunately both the institutions have been so methodically suppressed to render them ineffective. In fact, our national sovereignty has been debased and humiliated by one and all who mattered in Pakistan, in the same manner as Mukhtaran Mai, the helpless Pakistani woman, lost her honour in broad day light. Don’t cry Pakistan!!